The misfortune of the work is, that it is tainted with the modern leprosy of "liberalism." Not, indeed, in the worst or English form; but so far as to strip it of every high and noble aim; and to leave it, apparently, reaching after and earning, no loftier merit than that of mere literary fame. "It was almost an universal custom among the peculiar power or felicity of expression, and chargegreat houses of Venice to have a cabinet of manu- able with the capital fault of a false philosophy, as scripts attached to their library. These of course we shall presently have to complain. It is one of chiefly related to the affairs of the republic, and those calm and equable works which the reader represented the share which the particular family passes through without weariness and without exhad taken in public business: they were carefully citement. That fifteen hundred octavo pages should preserved, as memorials of the history and impor- be read, in these hurrying days, without weariness, tance of the house, for the instruction of its younger is no slight praise; that fifteen hundred pages, treatmembers. A few of these private collections are ing of the whole period of the Reformation, should still remaining, and were accessible to me; but a far be read without excitement, is, it strikes us, very greater number perished in the general ruin of the much the reverse. year 1797, and subsequently. If more has been saved out of the wreck than might be imagined, the world owes it chiefly to the librarians of St. Mark, who exerted the utmost powers of their institution to effect that object. The library of St. Mark contains a valuable store of manuscripts which are indispensable to the domestic history of the city or It has been said to be greatly to its honour, that republic, and important even to that of their relations whilst the Romanists charge it with Protestant party with Europe. But too much must not be expected spirit, the Protestants charge it with a leaning tofrom it. It is almost a new acquisition, casually wards popery. This, it has been argued, is an eviformed of private collections, without completeness dent proof of its perfect impartiality. But are the or uniform plan. It is not to be compared with the Romanists and Protestants, then, two parties who treasures of the state archives in their present con- are equally in the wrong; and does the truth lie dition and arrangement. In my inquiry into the between the two? Professor Ranke assumes the conspiracy of 1618, I have already described the character of a Protestant, and has to maintain that Venetian archives, and shall not repeat what I there character in his history. It is perfectly natural, said. The documents most appropriate to my Roman therefore, and might be expected, that the Romanists, objects were, the reports of the ambassadors on their who claim infallibility for their church, should be return from Rome. I should have been extremely offended at certain of its statements. But why are glad, however, to be able to have recourse to other we to reckon it a praise-reflecting circumstance, that collections, since none are free from deficiencies, and the Protestants themselves should charge it with a these archives have sustained many losses in the bias towards Romanism? It by no means appears course of their various wanderings. I collected, in requisite to the character of a fair and honourable all, forty-eight reports on Rome-the earliest of them historian, that he should exhibit a tendency to conof the year 1500; nineteen of the sixteenth, twenty- cede points to the disadvantage of his own professed one of the seventeerth century, forming an almost belief. To write with tenderness, and without exunbroken series; of the eighteenth century only hibiting acrimony, is indeed laudable; but to write eight, but these too, very instructive and valuable. in such a tone as to leave your own belief a matter In by far the greater number of cases, I saw and used of doubt, is anything but praiseworthy. To such an the originals. They contain a great many interest- one we may appropriately address the expostulation ing facts which were stated on personal observation, of Bishop Hall to Laud, and say,and have passed away with the lives of the contemporaneous generation. These first gave me the idea of a continuous narrative, and the courage to attempt it." Heat and cold "I would I knew where to find you; then I could tell how to take direct aims; whereas now I must pore and conjecture. To-day you are in the tents of the Romanists-to-morrow in ours; the next day These few passages constitute the best eulogium between both-against both. Our adversaries think that can be passed upon the work. The author has you ours-we, theirs; your conscience finds you given to the public that which has cost him actual with both and neither. I flatter you not: this of labour and toil. What he has accumulated by re- yours is the worst of all tempers. search, he has imparted with at least an intention of have their uses; lukewarmness is good for nothing, . How long will fairness and impartiality (qualities, indeed, which but to trouble the stomach. show); and he has constructed his narrative in a Cast off either your wings or your teeth, and, loathmay be exaggerated into faults, as we shall presently you halt in this indifference? Resolve one way, and know, at last, what you do hold—what you should. simple and business-like style and method. Having said these things of the work-and they constitute no ing this bat-like nature, be either a bird or a beast." slight recommendation-we fear that we can add no more. But the professor not only feels and manifests, but writes. The following is one passage in his prefrankly confesses, the "indifference" with which he face: It would be easy to fill a number of pages with extracts from these bulky volumes, after the usual fashion with reviewers, who fancy it a part of their duty to "serve up a sample." But we do not feel "An Italian, a Catholic, would set about the task inclined to follow a custom of this kind, merely be- in a totally different spirit from that in which the cause it is a custom. The book before us offers no present work is written. By the expression of perbrilliant passages worthy of citation merely for their sonal veneration, or it may be (in the present state of own sakes. It is evenly and fairly written; free opinion), of personal hatred, he would impart to his from all affectation or obscurity; but marked by no work a characteristic, and, I doubt not, a more vivid and brilliant colouring; and, in many passages, he would be more circumstantial, more ecclesiastical, or more local. In these respects a Protestant and a North German cannot hope to vie with him. The position and the feelings of such a writer with respect to the papacy are less exposed to the influences which excite the passions, and therefore while he is enabled to maintain the indifferency so essential to an historian, he must, from the very outset of his work, renounce that warmth of expression which springs from partiality or antipathy, and which might perhaps produce a considerable effect on Europe. We are necessarily deficient in true sympathy with purely ecclesiastical or canonical details. On the other hand, our circumstances enable us to occupy another point of view, which, if I mistake not, is more favourable to historical truth and impartiality. For what is there that can now make the history of the papal power interesting or important to us? Not its peculiar relation to us, which can no longer affect us in any material point; nor the anxiety or dread which it can inspire. The times in which we had any thing to fear are over; we are conscious of our perfect security. The papacy can inspire us with no other interest than what arises from its historical developement and its former influence." On this avowal we have two remarks to offer. 1. What reason, possessing the least validity, can Professor Ranke give for this declared and almost vaunted "indifferency?" Why should a (Roman) Catholic be in earnest in such a matter, and a Protestant "indifferent?" The cause of this opposite state of mind is not attempted to be explained. Shall we endeavour to indicate it? The class with which we fear the professor must be ranked, are not, in truth, Lutherans, or Calvinists, or Protestants, or even Christians. Had this book, calm and learned as it is, fallen under either of these four heads, we greatly doubt whether it would ever have been translated by Mrs. Sarah Austin. It is, unfortunately, but too notorious, that as "the scribes and pharisees sat in Moses' seat," of old, and yet made void the law of God, so the seat of Luther, and Calvin, and Melancthon, are filled, in the present day, by men who detest the doctrines of those great reformers. But why should the noble name of "Protestant" be assumed by those who maintain no protest against the abominations of popery? Further; and it is the most solemn question, Are those persons entitled to the character of Christians, who evidently either never read the word of God, or, if they do, who yield it no obedience? For who that studies the apostolic records, and marks the depth of feeling with which the papacy is denounced by the very highest of the apostles, would venture, except as an open contemner of the Holy Scriptures, to vaunt himself as neither knowing "partiality nor antipathy" towards the grand apostasy? Who that reads, and admits the description there given of Rome, as "the mother of harlots and the abominations of the earth;" as "drunk with the blood of the saints, and with the blood of the martyrs of Jesus;" as, emphatically, "THAT WICKED ONE, the Man of Sin, the Son of Perdition; whose coming is after the working of Satan, with all power, and signs, and lying wonders;" who, we repeat, that attaches the least weight to these inspired delineations, would, coolly, like Professor Ranke, "renounce that warmth of expression which springs from partiality or antipathy," and boast of "maintaining the indifferency so essential to an historian?" But the simple truth is, that the testimony of God's word, as to the character and standing of the papacy, is not believed,—is entirely set at naught! And what, we beg to ask, is one who will not receive the testimony of the Bible, but an infidel in fact, however he may disguise his scepticism by learned terms, and pseudo-philosophical phraseology? 2. The close of the passage is of the same tenor as the beginning. The professor can contemplate popery "without antipathy," because he can contemplate it "without fear." He is, therefore, confessedly, as ignorant of what may be expected as he is of what has occurred. He neither understands rightly what popery has been, nor what it is now. And, worst of all, he has a totally erroneous idea of human nature itself, and evidently imagines, with all the complacency of ignorance, that "we" have dethroned popery by our own might and wisdom; and that "we" have abundant power and skill to keep her down. Poor man! if the hopes of the human race rested on no better foundation than that upon which he evidently leans, miserable, indeed, would be the prospect before us! Singularly inconsistent, too, with the leading points in his own narrative is this feeling of "perfect security" which the professor so complacently avows. In her preface, Mrs. Austin remarks, that "The chief interest of the work lies in the solution it affords of the greatest problem of modern history. It is impossible to contemplate the rapid and apparently resistless progress of the Reformation in its infancy, without wondering what was the power which arrested and forced back the torrent, and reconquered to the ancient faith countries in which Protestantism seemed firmly established." More than half the book is taken up with the history of the reconquest of the greater part of Europe by the papal apostasy. "Solution of this problem," as Mrs. Austin calls it, there is none. But what we want to know is, How, seeing and detailing these events, the professor ends by "feeling perfectly secure" as to the remaining territories of Protestantism? In what way he arrives at the conclusion, that "Protestants have nothing to fear," from the power which rooted Protestantism out of France, Austria, Poland, Belgium, and southern Germany, we are at a loss to conceive. True, he finds that "the counter-reformation" was left unfinished-that in northern Germany, Holland, Sweden, and Great Britain it failed; but as to any permanent reason why-any solution-any cause implying security for the future-we find not a word. Temporary causes of the Romish failure-internal dissensions and the like, we find, indeed; but it is abundantly obvious that no lasting security can be gathered out of circumstances like these. How then, we again ask, does the professor arrive at his very comfortable conviction of the "perfect security" of the Protestant nations from any future inroads of Rome? Does he gather it from the recent letter of his holiness to the Earl of Shrewsbury, which runs thus ?— "POPE GREGORY XVI. and able to contemplate it with the "indifferency so essential to an historian." arise only from her too eager encroachments, which sometimes throw her back for a time. The precipitation of the Jesuits in 1830 produced a revolution in France, which rather retarded their forward progress. But the same year witnessed another revolution in the adjoining country-a revolution got up by Romanists, for Romish purposes, and which was fully successful. Ireland has waged a war in disguise with Protestant England, these fifteen years past, wholly at the instigation of the Vatican. Prussia is at the present moment harassed by a similar movement. Not only is every one of our colonies filling with priests and Jesuit missionaries; but even Otaheite is compelled to admit a similar pest, or fall under the wrath of the pope's ally, the newly zealous court of France. Never, for more than a century past, has Rome shown such untiring energy as at the present moment; or so openly avowed her hopes of reascending the seat of universal empire. "To our beloved son, John Earl of Shrewsbury, There is no blinding our eyes to the fact, that President of the Catholic Institute of Great Bri- Rome is once again rousing herself to claim, and to tain. wrestle for, the mastery of the world. What spot of the civilised globe is there that is not, at this mo"Beloved son, health and apostolical benediction.ment, a witness to her efforts? Even her disasters -Whilst filled with sorrow on account of the everincreasing calamities of the church of Christ, we have received such abundant cause of gladness as has not only relieved us in the bitterness with which we were afflicted, but has excited in us more than ordinary joy; for we have been informed that, by the care of yourself, and other noble and pious men, the Catholic Institute was, two years ago, established in Great Britain, with the design especially of protecting the followers of our divine faith in freedom and security; and, by the publication of works, of vindicating the spouse of the immaculate lamb from the calumnies of the heterodox. Since, therefore, these purposes tend in the highest degree to the advantage of the English nation, you can easily understand, beloved son, the reason why such joy should have been felt by us, who have been, by divine appointment, constituted the heirs of the name and chair of that Gregory the Great who, by the torch of the Catholic faith, first enlightened Britain, involved in the darkness of idolatry. We are encouraged to entertain the cheering hope that the light of divine faith will again shine with the same brightness as of old upon the minds of the British people. We desire nothing with greater earnestness than to embrace once more with paternal exultation the English nation, adorned with so many and such excellent qualities, and to receive back the long lost sheep into the fold of Christ. Wherefore, beloved son, we cannot refrain from strenuously exhorting you, and all the members of the pious association over which you preside, to offer up fervent prayers with us to the Father of Mercies, that he would propitiously remove the lamentable darkness which still covers the minds of so many dwelling unhappily in error, and in his clemency bring the children of the church, who have wandered from her, back to the bosom of the mother whom they have left. We ask again, then, for a rational ground for Professor Ranke's confidence, that "the times in which we had any thing to fear are over?" None is offered. We ask, what is the "solution," so much lauded by Mrs. Austin, of the problem of the "ebb and flow" of the Reformation? None is given. Instead of proofs and elucidations, we are treated with such sounding nonentities as the following: "Never more can the thought of exalting the one or the other confession to universal supremacy find The only consideration now is, place among men. how each state, each people, can best proceed from the basis of its own politico-religious principles, to the developement of its intellectual and moral powers."-Vol. ii. p. 596. 66 Thus is God and his word thrust aside, and human reason exalted to the throne. That "the Most High ruleth in the kingdom of men;" that " He changeth times and seasons; removeth kings, and getteth up kings," is wholly forgotten or denied. That he hath given us a revelation of his will; and not of his will only, but even of many of his purposes, is a matter never once thought of. And so, choosing darkness rather than light," these great philosophers jump at conclusions, solve problems, and enunciate dogmas, after a fashion which makes any plain reader of the word of eternal truth wonder and admire, in the contemplation of His mighty power, who "turneth wise men backwards, and maketh their knowledge foolish." Solution of this "problem" there is none, in Professor Ranke's volumes. Facts, indeed, bearing upon the circumstances of the times, he has usefully and laboriously accumulated; but these, while they cast some light on the movement itself, afford no clue whatever to discover the hidden source of that We should greatly doubt the reasonableness of such an expectation. When England, which beheaded one king and expelled another, from a feeling of abhorrence to popery-when England rejoins the papacy, there will be little hope of the longer hold-movement. ing out of those, who even now are proud to profess themselves "free from all antipathy" to Romanism, Vide Sam Slick; or, the Clockmaker. We are not about to offer ourselves as problemsolvers or hieroglyphic-decipherers; nor shall we pretend to have fully satisfied even our own minds as to the true but hidden causes of the reaction in as it existed, let us say, in the days of the sons of Theodosius; and let him transfer its western boundaries to a modern map of Europe. He will find that, with scarcely the least discrepancy, this boundary line incloses papal Europe; or, at least, that while without that boundary the Reformation was generally successful, within it, it was uniformly suppressed. favour of popery at the end of the sixteenth century But there are a few striking features in those portions of the only infallible record which refer to this subject, which seem to us to have a remarkable bearing on this mysterious question, There are certain grand general prophecies in the word of God, as to the meaning of which there never has been any doubt, and as to the propriety of studying, quoting, and referring to which, no question has ever been For, let it be remembered, there was not a corner raised. These portions of holy scripture are, in- of Europe into which THE TRUTH did not penetrate. deed, among the brightest and clearest internal evi- France, Spain, Italy, Austria, Savoy, Belgium, all dences of its divine character and origin. No other were visited by the light of God's word; and in book, for instance, than the Bible, ever told man- several of these countries the Reformation struck deep kind that there should be four universal empires, and root, and threw out branches far and wide. But, no more. The Bible told us so centuries before any strange as it may seem to human eyes, the ten kingcreated intellect could have divined the fact. No doms which occupied the platform of the western other book ever warned us, that the fourth and last empire-the fourth beast of Daniel and St. John— of these empires should be broken up into ten sepa- these ten kingdoms, with one consent, "agreed,' rate kingdoms or states. The Bible told us this, and put down the profession of the true gospel; and nearly a thousand years before its occurrence; and hurried its disciples, with fire and sword, out of their the prediction was translated out of the Hebrew into territories, and resolved “to give their kingdom unto the Greek Septuagint long before-probably two the (Roman) beast, until the words of God should hundred years before-the coming of Christ; while be fulfilled." And, with nearly an equal unanimity, the fulfilment began to be seen at the end of the all that part of Europe which was not within the old fifth century after Christ, and was completed at the western empire, both received the truth with joy, beginning of the seventh. and held it fast against all opposers. How wondrous, too, is the singular expression This fact, which is simply a historical and geowith regard to these ten kingdoms:-"They shall graphical one, is worth some reflection. Men like mingle themselves with the seed of men, but they Professor Ranke, who are too much occupied with shall not cleave together," Dan. ii. 43. How many their learned researches to pay much attention to the attempts did the world behold after the fall of the word of God, necessarily get into a mode of speech western empire, to constitute another, by family which differs little from that of the atheist. They compact, intrigue, or conquest! Charlemagne, talk as though the world were given over to the Charles V. and others, have striven to accomplish management of the men and women who live upon this work; and sometimes have seemed to approxi- it; and as though the builders of the tower of Babel mate to success. But the dissevered states could were a set of statesmen of exceeding wisdom and not "cleave together." The lapse of a few years foresight. Such texts as these seem never to recur always saw them fall asunder; no real principle of to their minds :coherence existing, "even as iron is not mixed with clay."-Dan. ii. 43. Now in the New Testament we find a change of figure, but still we recognise the fourth empire, the Roman, and its separation into ten powers. The fourth beast of Daniel's 7th chapter, with its ten horns, which are expressly declared to denote "ten kings (or states) which shall arise," appears before us again in the 17th chapter of St. John's Apocalypse, ridden upon, ruled over, and identified with, the adulterous woman, which, in the 18th verse, is shown to be Rome itself. And again it is declared, that "the ten horns are ten kings;" which ten kings, we are further told, shall "agree, and give their kingdom to the beast, UNTIL the words of God shall be fulfilled."-Rev. xvii. 17. "When the Most High divided to the nations their inheritance, when he separated the sons of Adam, he set the bounds of the people according to the number of the children of Israel.”—Deut. xxxii. 8. The permission of evil in the world is a question which we are under no necessity of approaching. That a vast evil did and does exist, and has existed for twelve hundred years, in the ten kingdoms of the western empire, is a fact which remains the same under any hypothesis. That the same divine power which made the word effectual, and gave his truth a visible home in northern Europe, might have wrought similar wonders in southern, and did not, is equally beyond all question. The only difference between us is, Whether, with the Berlin professor, we should This explicit and positive declaration seems to leave no room to doubt, that the ten kingdoms which solve the problem" by magnifying the talents of arose on the platform of the western empire should Pope Clement or Pope Leo; or, with the humble continue in one mind, and in' undeviating allegiance Christian who reads his Bible, should look up with to the apostate church, which, as typified by the awe and reverence to that God, who claims the honour harlot-rider of the ten-horned beast, was to sway and for himself; and who demands, "Who hath deguide them by one impulse, until the fulfilment of clared this from ancient time? who hath told it "the words of God"-the predictions of his inspired from that time? Have not 1, the Lord? and prophets. Such was the declaration of St. John. there is no God beside me."-Isa. xlv. 21. Let us now turn to the fact. We shall find that it Perhaps, however, it may be asked, What is the exhibits one of the most surprising fulfilments of purport, what the drift of this suggestion? Why prophecy which have occurred in the whole volume suppose that certain kingdoms, within a particular of the world's history. limit, have been left to darkness and judicial hardWherefore embrace so revolting a fancy? Let any one take a map of the old Roman empire, Iness? Our reply is, that we desire to set up no hypothe- for possession, or for ascendancy, in these territories; sis of our own, but simply to follow the plain word and, if there was any question of right, the pope had of God. A reason, however, for the separation of manifestly a better right than any other. But he was the old western, or Roman empire, from the rest of not nearly their equal in force, or in the resources of Europe, is sufficiently obvious. In Daniel vii. 11, it war. He was restrained by no scruple from renderis written, (and "not one jot or tittle of the word ing his spiritual power (elevated by its nature and of God shall fail, till all be fulfilled;") that "the purpose above all earthly interests) subservient to beast (the fourth, or Roman beast,) was slain; and his worldly views, or from debasing it by a mixture his body given to the burning flame." Now it is with those temporary intrigues in which his ambisufficiently obvious that, to the fulfilment of this tion had involved him. The Medici being peculiarly prophecy, it is essential that the western empire be in his way, he took part in the Florentine troubles; kept apart, as peopled by a separate race, and re- and, as is notorious, brought upon himself the sus served to a separate fate, from the rest of Europe. picion of being privy to the conspiracy of the Pazzi, and to the assassination which they perpetrated on the steps of the altar of the cathedral; the suspicion that he, the father of the faithful, was an accomplice of such acts! We merely allude, in passing, to these facts, as furnishing something much more nearly approaching to a "solution of the problem," than that which Professor Ranke has given us. To say, as he does, that such and such a design failed, because such and such a combination was broken up, may be true, but it is a very small part of the truth. It merely points out the proximate cause. But to dwell solely upon this, and to look no higher, is more like the reasoning of a child than that of a philosopher. As to Professor Ranke's conclusions, then-as to the instruction which he and Mrs. Sarah Austin would have us draw from his narrations, we shall humbly beg permission to decline this part of his labours. We thank him for his researches and his pains; but we reserve to ourselves the liberty of deducing our own inferences. "When the Venetians ceased to favour the schemes of his nephew, as they had done for a considerable time, the pope was not satisfied with deserting them in a war into which he himself had driven them; he went so far as to excommunicate them for persisting in it. He acted with no less violence in Rome. He persecuted the opponents of Riario, the Colonnas, with savage ferocity; he seized Marino from them; he caused the prothonotary Colonna to be attacked, arrested, and executed in his own house. The mother of Colonna came to San Celso in Banchi, where the body lay. She lifted the severed head by the hair, and cried, behold the head of my son! Such Nor is this the whole of our dissent. Freely con- is the faith of the pope. He promised that if we ceding to the professor all the merit of persevering would give up Marino to him he would set my son toil in research, and believing him, also, to have at liberty. He has Marino, and my son is in our been sincerely desirous of acting and writing with hands-but dead! Behold, thus does the pope keep the utmost impartiality, we yet demur to his claim his word!' to offer us the result of his labours as a work of truth, a record to be relied on. We believe that the professor wished and endeavoured to make it such a work; and his failure, if he has failed, only shows, the more distinctly, how entirely he mistakes the real character of the human mind. We do not think that Professor Ranke's history is a true history. We could not venture to quote it as a safe authority. This is a serious charge, when made against a work of high reputation; we shall therefore proceed to explain what we mean. "So much was necessary to enable Sixtus IV. to obtain the victory over his enemies, at home and abroad. He succeeded in making his nephew lord of Imola and Forli; but it is certain that if his temporal dignity was much augmented, his spiritual suffered infinitely more. An attempt was made to assemble a council against him."-Vol. i. pp. 45-47. Here is a sufficiently explicit charge of ambition But is this the whole truth? Let us and cruelty. turn to other authorities. Mr. Edgar, whose Variations of Popery* is one of the few books of the present day, which, for laborious research, will bear comparison even with Professor Ranke's, thus describes Pope Sixtus IV.: Of many of the leading characters in his narrative, he presents portraits differing in many important points from those which have been current in the world for centuries past. And he does this, again and again, without the slightest explanation; with- "Sixtus IV., who was elected in 1471, walked in out the least attempt to show wherein former histo- the footsteps of his predecessors, Gregory, Boniface, rians were mistaken; and even without so much as and John. This pontiff has, with reason, been acplainly asserting that the established belief relative cused of murder and debauchery. He conspired for to such persons has been tinged with scandal or the assassination of Julian and Laurentius, two of with error. Let us adduce an instance or two of the Medicean family. He engaged Pazzi, who was this kind. chief of the faction which, in Florence, was hostile The work is entitled a History of the Popes of to the Medici, in the stratagem. Pazzi was supportRome. Its value, therefore, must mainly consist in ed in the diabolical attempt by Raitio, Montesecco, the truth of its delineations of the characters of their Salvian, and Poggio. The conspirators, who were "holinesses." We will take the first three named in many, attacked Julian and Laurentius during mass the work, and see with what degree of truth their on Sunday. Julian was killed. Laurentius fled, portraitures are sketched. The first is Sixtus IV.: wounded, to the vestry, where he was saved from "Sixtus IV. (1471-1484) conceived the plan of the fury of the assassins. The Medicean faction, in founding a principality for his nephew, Girolamo the meantime, mustered and assailed the conspiraRiario, in the rich and beautiful plains of Romagna. The other powers of Italy were already contending Grace, the Archbishop of Armagh. *Published in 1837; dedicated, by permission, to his |