When the late parted pilgrim who pursues When beams the day-star with diminished pride, Or orchard plot, of glow worms emerald bright, And strain their brethren in a last embrace.' pp. 82, 83. The canto concludes with an apostrophe to later times: the allusion is singularly happy, from the coincidence of names and of place. Sleeps Arthur in his isle of Avalon ? High-favour'd Erin sends him forth once more To realize the dream of days far gone, The wizard strains of old Caer-merddhyn's lore. The death of Olivier, the three wondrous blasts which Orlando at length put forth from his miraculous horn, by the last of which it was burst in two, the confusion of the self-condemned Ganellon at the sound, and his horror at the spectral appearance of his son, the posthumous visitation of the enchanter to Charlemagne, whose prophetic rage was roused by that same dread blast of Clermont's horn, to speak and breathe its last:'-all these truly romantic and picturesque incidents, and the miracles attending the death of Orlando, which are in true chivalrous and right Catholic taste, we must be content thus briefly to refer to. They are devoutly translated from the Morgante Maggiore, and therefore rest on undoubted authority. The pathos, however, of the catastrophe is necessarily weakened, not to say destroyed, by the puerile improbability of the legendary fiction. The dignity of the hero is sacrificed to the mummery of canonization. Nothing can be more ridiculous in fiction, or more pitiable in grave narration, than a Roman Catholic saint. We should as soon feel disposed to sympathize with a Gothic monument, or to melt into tears over a worm eaten relic of antiquity. The pageantry of death only serves, in poetry, as in reality, to conceal the object; the pomp of circumstance which is introduced to conceal the nakedness of the simple fact, effectually quenches the feelings, and destroys the interest. We do not blame Mr. Merivale: he has given us, what we think most of our readers would have wished him to give, a faithful transcript of the old romance. Orlando dies à la romanesque, a death full as noble as any which Homer or Virgil has immortalized; and as poetical as we believe the death of a hero can be made. It is Christianity alone which can render death suciime, and we do not look for much of either Christianity or sublimity in a romance of the fourteenth century. The reader will now be able to appreciate Mr. Merivale's performance. As a poet, there is little but the polished elegance of his diction and the smoothness of his versification, which it was allowed him to display. These, however, with that accurate conception of the spirit of the original, and that discriminative taste, which enable a translator to transfuse the living ideas, instead of copying the mere form of expression, he appears in an eminent degree to possess. We confidently hope that he will be induced to give us other specimens of Italian genius in this intelligible and interesting form. There are many poets of that illustrious era, Dante himself not excepted, whose works, if reduced like the books of the Sybil to one third of their present bulk, would be increased to tenfold value: they would then come forth from the Medean process of translation in all the freshness of renovated youth. Art. III. The History of Persecution, from the Patriarchal Age, to the Reign of George II. By S. Chandler, D. D. F. R S. S. A. A new Edition. To which are added, the Rev. Dr. Buchanan's Notices of the present State of the Inquisition at Goa. Also an Appendix, containing Hints on the recent Persecutions in the British Empire. Some Circumstances relating to Lord Viscount Sidmouth's Bill; a circumstantial Detail of the Steps taken to obtain the new Toleration Act, with the Act itself, and other important Matter. By the Rev. Charles Atmore. Svo. pp. viii. 520. Price 10s. 6d. boards. Craggs, Hull; Longman and Co. London. 1813. MORE than seventy years have elapsed since this work was originally published. Recently it had become very scarce; and as it is generally allowed to be a work of talent and research, and not altogether devoid of interest, Mr. Atmore (who is, we believe, a respectable minister among the Wesleyan Methodists) undertook the task of its republication. He informs us that he has wholly omitted Dr. Chandler's original preface, which was in a great measure, occupied by a personal controversy; and also all the marginal notes which were of a controversial nature: and, as this edition was intended principally for common readers, he has left out all the Greek and Latin sentences which the Author had scattered throughout the work, and simply retained the references to his authorities, for the satisfaction of the learned reader. In regard to the body of the work, he has neither altered the sense nor the language 6 ya This history is divided into four books, and each of these into several sections. The first book relates to persecutions among the Heathens; the second, to persecutions under the Christian emperors; the third, to pers cutions under the Papacy, and particularly the Inquisition; and the fourth, to persecutions among Protestants. These four books are followed 'Conclusion,' in seven sections, in which the reader is ught that the Clergy are the great promoters of persecution;" that ، pride, ambition, and covetousness, are the grand sources of persecution;' that the decrees of councils and syno is are of no authority in matters of faith;' that the imposing subscriptions to human creeds is unreasonable and pernicious;' that men are ' not to trouble the Christian church with metaphysical subtleties and abstruse questions, that minister to quarelling and strife; nor to pronounce censures, judgements, and anathemas, upon such as may differ from us in speculative truths.' From what we have already produced, it is strikingly evident that Dr. Chandler has written under very strong prepossessions; and from a farther examination of his work, it appears, at least to us, that his prepossessions are not confined to the subject already mentioned, but that they extend also to what is usually denominated orthodoxy,' in point of doctrinal sentiment; or, as he would term it, in reference to speculative truths! Those persons who may read his "History of Persecution," should constantly bear in mind this circumstance, for an author who writes under the influence of a mind so powerfully biassed, is liable to deviate widely from the straight and uniform tenor of an impartial historian. Dr. C. has written, it must always be recollected, with a positive and plainly avowed object. He never loses sight of that object for a single moment; and, therefore, if he draws, from the general repository of historical knowledge, any facts which do not tend considerably to further his purpose, it is by accident, and cer tainly not by design. This, in our estimation, greatly detracts from the respectability and utility of his performance; and prevents our giving it that recommendation which would otherwise be due to the talents and investigation of Dr. Chandler. We have said that, in the first book, he speaks of persecutions among the Heathens. Here he informs us that Socrates was persecuted on the account of his religion;' that Anaxagoras was accused of impiety for affirming, that the sun was a globe of red-hot iron; that Stilpo was banished from his country because he denied 'Minerva to be a god, allowing her only to be a goddess;' that Protagoras fled from his coun-, try to escape the punishment of death, because he had written. something about the gods that differed from the orthodox opinions of the Athenians; that there was a bloody and destructive theological battle in Egypt between those who worshipped dogs and ate fishes, and those who worshipped fishes and ate dogs; and so on. To us this mode of treating the subject appears to be most egregiously rifling, unworthy of a man of either piety or learning, and quite incongruous with its painful importance. To have rendered this early part of the history complete, the Doctor should have descanted upon the persecuting spirit which excluded the Antediluvians from the ark, and which led the barbarous Moses to repel the Canaanites from their land to make room for a tribe of ignorant, bigoted Jews. After having descanted at sufficient length upon the persecution of Heathens by Heathens, he devotes a few pages to the purpose of describing the persecutions of Christians. And this seems intended as a proof of the Author's candour; for he says, From these accounts it evidently appears that the Christian world ALONE is NOT chargeable with the guilt of persecution on the score of religion.' He also tells us here, (though to our narrow comprehension it seems a little to clash with the position in the first section of his Conclusion, that the clergy are the great promoters of persecution,)' that as the truth of history obliges him to compliment the laity with the honour of this excellent invention [of persecution] for the sup port and propagation of religion; and as its continuance in the world to this day is owing to the protection and authority of their laws, and to certain political ends and purposes they have to serve thereby; the loading the priesthood only or principally, with the infamy and guilt of it, is a mean and groundless scandal.” It is an opinion which has been very generally adopted, that within three hundred years of the crucifixion of our Lord, the Church suffered ten most grievous persecutions: but, as every one cannot be supposed to recollect the most striking circum stances of those persecutions, it was natural to expect that in a work like this, more than ten pages would be appropriated to their history. So short, however, is the space to which our Author limits this interesting part of his inquiries; and, of course, he presents no adequate development of the occasions of those persecutions, nor any satisfactory detail of their nature and consequences. The ninth persecution, that under Valerian, for example, was occasioned, as Eusebius and other ecclesiastical historians inform us, by the artful insinuations of an Egyptian sorcerer, who pretended that the Christians destroyed the prosperity of the empire by their execrable charms, for as such he profanely and maliciously represented their special power over the Demons which they were in the habit of expelling and silencing.' In reference to such matters as these, it is possible the learned Doctor's silence was a matter of principle; because to tell of the power of the primitive Christians over demons, is to tell of the existence of demons, and thus to touch upon one of those speculative truths,' and abstruse questions that minister to quarrelling and strife.' When a Divine by profession is engaged in a work like the present, instead of seeing him phlegmatically weighing the comparative activity of clergymen and laymen in the nefarious employment of persecution, or the relative tendencies of religion and philosophy to feed the flame, we should prefer finding him deducing some general observation worthy of a man who philosophically traces, and religiously admits, the just visitations of Providence upon the heads of persecutors. In this respect, a single observation of Evagrius's (an historian of the sixth century, whom we do not very much admire) accords more with our own feelings, than three-fourths of Dr. Chandler's volume. In reply to Zosimus, the Ethnic, who railed at the Christians, and misrepresented Constantine, he says, in a spirited digression, from which we quote only a small part, Let us see, if thou art inclined, how the emperors who were ethnics and heathens, maintainers of idolatry and paganism, and persecutors of the faithful, and how, on the contrary, such as adhered to the christian faith, ended their reign. Was not Caius Julius Cæsar slain by conspirators? Did not soldiers with naked swords dispatch Caius, the nephew of Tiberius? Was not Nero murdered by one of his familiar and dear friends? Had not Galba, Otho, and Vitellius, the like end, all of whom reigned only sixteen months? What shall I say of Titus, whom Domitian poisoned, although he was his own brother? What of Commodus, whom Narcissus dispatched out of the way? What of Pertinax, and what of Julian, but that they both suffered one kind of death? Did not Antonius, the son of Severus murder his brother Geta? And did not Martial requite |