.Mali^diC^ Js.i.l^rc\r^ 
 
 ^ 
 
•^ESSAYS, 
 DESCRIPTIVE AND MORAL ; 
 
 SCENES IN ITALY, SWITZERLAND, 
 AND FRANCE. 
 
 By an AMERICAN. 
 
 There is the moral of all human tales ; 
 ' 'Tis but the same rehearsal of the past, 
 ' First Freedom, and then Glory— when that faiU. 
 ' Wealth, Vice, Corruption— Barbarism at last." 
 
 - t t iSt^ 
 
 EDINBURGH : 
 
 PRINTED FOR 
 
 ARCHIBALD CONSTABLE AND CO. EDINBURGH: 
 
 HURST, ROBINSON, AND CO. LONDON ; 
 
 .JOHN CU3IMING, DUBLIN ; AND 
 
 .TAMES EASTBOURNE, AND CO. NEW YORK. 
 
 1823. 
 
-i\ 
 
CONTENTS. 
 
 Psestum, 3 
 
 Pompeii, 15 
 
 Naples, 23 
 
 St Peter's, 40 
 
 Pilgrims at Rome, 46 
 
 Papal Ceremonies, 52 
 
 San Paolo alle tre Fontane, 77 
 
 The Cataract at Terni, 89 
 
 Carrara and Chiavari, 96 
 
 Carthusian IMonastery near Pavia, 110 
 
 Milan, 117 
 
 Lake of Como, 122 
 
 San Marino, 131 
 
 Peschiera, 152 
 
 Venice, 15() 
 
 Tyrol, 165 
 
 Rhine and Constance, 180 
 
 Geneva, 190 
 
 French Protestants, 217 
 
 Waterloo, 242 
 
 Cemetery of Pere la Chaise, 25<.; 
 
PREFACE. 
 
 Italy, dm-ing all the periods of its 
 eventful history, has been a country so 
 interesting and so unique, that it is by 
 no means surprising that it has been an 
 object of attraction to the intelligent of 
 all the siuTOunding nations, from the aera 
 of the revival of learning in Europe to 
 the present time. So numerous and di- 
 versified have been the compositions to 
 which the scenery of its surface, and the 
 antiquities, the arts, the customs and 
 a 
 
11 PREFACE. 
 
 manners of its inhabitants have given 
 rise, that it may appear presumptuous 
 for an unknown author to increase the 
 extensive catalogue, by the addition of 
 another volume. He feels it therefore 
 necessary to explain the motives which 
 induce him to hazard this little publica- 
 tion, on a subject which may seem to be 
 exhausted. 
 
 The author has long been of opinion 
 that the generality of travellers have vi- 
 sited Italy with expectations so low re- 
 specting the moral condition of its inha- 
 bitants ; or with minds so eagerly intent 
 on the glories of ancient learning, and 
 the graces of modern art, that they have 
 in too many instances either overlooked, 
 or but slightly noticed, this most interest- 
 ing subject of contemplation. Many of 
 
PREFACE. Ill 
 
 them have witnessed, therefore, with ap- 
 parent apathy, exhibitions of character 
 and manners, which, in their own coun- 
 tries, would have filled them with indig- 
 nation and sorrow. 
 
 The natural consequences of this are 
 a relaxed morality at home, and the con- 
 tinuance or aggravation abroad of those 
 evils, which the influences of Great Bri- 
 tain and America might have enabled 
 their free and enlightened citizens to 
 counteract. The consequences in a religi- 
 ous point of view are, it is to be feared, 
 still more pernicious and deplorable. 
 There is a charm attached to the poetical 
 fables of heathen mythology, which de- 
 lights men of erudition, and which even 
 grave statesmen and profound philoso- 
 
iv PREFACE. 
 
 phers are unable and unwilling to resist. 
 Hence those finely sculptured remains of 
 an exploded superstition, which present 
 the resemblances of departed men exalt- 
 ed into gods, or even sometimes of deified 
 personifications of the corrupt passions 
 of our nature, have become the objects of 
 unmingled admiration, and of unbounded 
 applause. 
 
 Is it not to be dreaded, at the present 
 time in particular, when crowds of the 
 ingenious, the wealthy, and the gay, of 
 both sexes, resort to Italy to drink at the 
 sacred fount, as it is rather strangely 
 called, of classic inspiration, that they 
 will lose their relish for a far pui'er and 
 holier fountain ? May it not be appre- 
 hended that religion will be viewed ra- 
 
PREFACE. V 
 
 ther with reference to taste and form, 
 than to faith and practice ? That the 
 fashionable votaries at the shrine of Fan- 
 cy and of Fiction, will gradually become 
 indifferent and insensible to the surpas- 
 sing charms and paramount claims of mo- 
 ral and religious Truth ? In a word, is 
 it quite um-easonable to forebode, that, 
 as the Popish corruptions of Christiani- 
 ty have with masterly precision, and ir- 
 resistil^le strength of argument, been 
 traced by Middleton and others to a Pa- 
 gan origin ; so the decay of the love of 
 that simple and unostentatious worship, 
 which is suited to the genius of the gos- 
 pel, may, by some future moralist, be 
 traced to the admiration of heathen tem- 
 ples, altars, and deities, now so prevalent 
 among Protestants ? 
 
Vi PREFACE. 
 
 "NVlien we reflect how much we are 
 under the influence of external circum- 
 stances, and how frequently we see the 
 grossest licentiousness united with the 
 most servile superstition, can we wonder 
 if the mummeries of the Romish church 
 should find new votaries among the self- 
 expatriated numbers of English emi- 
 grants, who, at a period of public diffi- 
 culty, have left their native shores, and 
 sought their home among strangers in a 
 foreign land : or that those inquisitive 
 Americans who flock to the old world, 
 glowing with the desire to share 
 
 " The gather'd wisdom of a thousand years," 
 
 should be perverted from the simplicity 
 of their faith, by a religion which exer- 
 cises the senses rather than the soul, and 
 
gratifies the invagination rather than 
 arouses the coi^cienee, and meliorates 
 the heart ! 
 
 Impressed with such ideas, the Author 
 has studied to keep his mind chiefly fix- 
 ed on the subjects which he deemed of 
 the highest interest and importance in a 
 moral and religious point of view. Who- 
 ever, then, may take up this little volume 
 with the e-xpectationof finding a minute 
 detail of his route, his companions, the 
 fare he partook of, or the spectacles 
 which he saw, will be disappointed.- 
 Neither will the reader find in these Es- 
 says a regular series of compositions, 
 where one subject is begun, discussed. 
 and concluded in one Essay. The design 
 of the Author is to convey the general 
 impression made on his mind by the mo- 
 
PEEFACE. 
 
 ral and religious condition of the most 
 interesting of the continental districts 
 through which he passed; and therefore, 
 whenthesame impression was renewedby 
 the objects of his attention, he has found 
 it necessary to repeat and enforce it. The 
 natural tendency of an American to com- 
 pare, and often to contrast, the scenery, 
 governments, and religion of some of the 
 most celebrated countries of the old world 
 with those of the new, he has freely in- 
 dulged, as it seemed to afford favourable 
 opportunities of pointing out the source 
 and the remedy of many existing evils. 
 
 The plan of the Essayist has, for rea- 
 sons which he deems it unnecessary to 
 state, been much abridged ; and the pre- 
 sent is to be considered as furnishing little 
 more thana hint of whatmight bedone by 
 
PREFACE. IX 
 
 those who have leisure, and knowledge, 
 and christian principle, sufficient to fit 
 them for the impqitant undertaking. He 
 feels, in the meantime, some reluctance 
 in offering to the public a work of such 
 limited extent. But this reluctance he 
 has endeavoured to overcome, partly from 
 a sense of duty, and partly from a de- 
 sire of redeeming, in some degree, the 
 pledge which he incautiously, perhaps, 
 gave to the fi'iends on either side of the 
 Atlantic, who kindly interested them- 
 selves in his wanderings ; who felt soli- 
 citous to share in his emotions, whether 
 of a pleasurable or painful kind, and who 
 urged him to try to throw his observa- 
 tions and reflections into the channel of 
 public utility. 
 
 b 
 
X niEFACE. 
 
 The traveller has twice visited the 
 continent of EuroiDe, but has only once 
 made the tour of Italy. As little atten- 
 tion is paid to dates in this book, it is pro- 
 per to state, that he entered Italy by the 
 Semplone, in the end of October 1817, 
 and quitted it early in the simimer of 
 1818, by the Tyrolese Alps. But it will 
 be observed, that he commences his re- 
 flections at the most southern point of 
 his journey, and conducts his reader from 
 place to place, to the northern extremity 
 of Italy ; and thence to the Tyrol and 
 France. 
 
 Whatever defect may belong to these 
 reflections, or whatever judgment a libe- 
 ral and discerning public may form of 
 them, the author can most truly say, that 
 they are written after close and careful 
 
PREFACE. XI 
 
 personal attention to the topics to which 
 they relate, from notes made on the jour- 
 ney, and under the impression of the di- 
 versified feelings which the objects of 
 contemplation produced in his mind. 
 
ESSAYS, 
 DESCRIPTIVE AND MORAL. 
 
ESSAYS, 
 
 DESCRIPTIVE AND MORAL. 
 
 P^STUM. 
 
 liiE solitariness of Calabria is of a peculiar 
 character. Aii American journeying in this dis- 
 trict perceives that he has arrived at a spot 
 where the similarity is most striking, between 
 a people who roam over regions, once the seat 
 of all the useful and ornamental arts, and those 
 tribes who range in the wester'n forests, never 
 yet recovered from the wildness of nature. 
 
 The unconcerned air, and unrelenting fero- 
 city of a Calabrian, are as little inviting as the 
 same qualities in the appearance of aNorth Ame- 
 
P^STUM. 
 
 rican Indian ; while his goat-skin habit gives 
 less play to the imagination, than the feathers 
 and wampum of the more active and intelligent 
 savage. 
 
 But there are proofs of Ingh ancestry in the 
 occupancy of this portion of the Italian people, 
 which invest their territory with an irresistible 
 charm. Paestum, a ruin at the time when Rome 
 sprang up, new and magnificent, and adorned 
 with the spoils of the world, still stands to rival 
 the Coliseum in resisting the waste of ages. So 
 completely has all this region been desolated, 
 either by the natural evil of MaFaria, or the po- 
 litical scourge of,»mal-government, that though 
 these ruins are sitviated upon the Gulf of Sa- 
 lerno, and not a hundred miles from Naples, 
 their existence escaped the knowledge of anti- 
 quaries until the middle of the last century. 
 
 The walls, and three temples alone, mark the 
 site of this once populous city. That which is 
 called tlie Temple of Neptune, the largest of 
 
P.ESTIJM. 5 
 
 the three, is upwards of two hundred feet long, 
 and nearly ninety wide. The two fronts present 
 six columns to the view : while fourteen on each 
 side shew at once the magnitude and splendour 
 of this most ancient edifice. The columns are 
 composed of five pieces, and are in the form of 
 truncated cones, resting without pediment upon 
 the floor of the temple ; to which there is an 
 ascent by a flight of steps. 
 
 Some antiquarians consider the second build- 
 ing, of nearly equal size, a Basilica, where the 
 courts of justice were held ; and the third, which 
 is little more than half as large, a temple erect- 
 ed to the honour of Ceres. 
 
 The walls of Paestum are of that massive con- 
 struction, which resists the utmost force of time. 
 This sort of building has been designated by 
 the title of Cyclopaean. I saw some substruc- 
 tions, much of the same kind, at Fesole ; near 
 the eminence upon which stands Galileo's Ob- 
 servatory. The name refers us back to a race 
 
of men who lived before history was written, and 
 who liave therefore been seized upon as pro- 
 per subjects for poetical illustration. It would 
 seem to need the assistance of the forge-men of 
 Vulcan to lay up such walls, if they who work- 
 ed in iron were as mighty also in stone. Mi- 
 cali, in his work upon " Italy, as it was before 
 the dominion of the Romans," has sought to col- 
 lect the little that can be known of this singu- 
 lar people. That they were a colony of Greeks 
 is evident, not only from the style of the archi- 
 tectural remains, but more certainly from the 
 Greek coins, which are now continually found 
 in digging in the neighbouring fields. I bought 
 a silver one of Minerva : the erudite affirm that 
 she was the patron goddess of the city. 
 
 The pillars which support the cornices of the 
 temples are so much worn, as to be not unlike, 
 in their exterior surface, to a honeycomb. These 
 vestiges of a thousand years are far more affect- 
 ing tlian the ivy which mantles an ]'ai£?lish 
 
ruin. It is affecting to see the walls which shel- 
 tered the monks of the fourteenth century, and 
 once resovuided to their impressive anthems, 
 and which are now grey and falling, covered 
 with verdure ; but it is more like what we wish 
 to see in the ruins of a Grecian city, that even 
 vegetable life should not wrap its foliage around 
 the standing column. There are a perfect sym- 
 metry and grandeur here, which need no extra- 
 neous advantage. The Apollo Belvidere would 
 be admirable, even though it were not in the 
 Palace of the Vatican. 
 
 But the loneliness of the situation most af- 
 fects the feelings, by leading us to reflect how 
 widely scattered is the dust of the men who left 
 these durable monuments ; — that the history of 
 their virtues, or their crimes, is faded from the 
 earth ; — that the honours in which they exulted, 
 or the pains which they endured, have passed by 
 for ever ; — and that they themselves have enter- 
 
8 P.ESTUM. 
 
 eel into the invisible state, and the presence of its 
 Almighty and Omniscient King. 
 
 We may save ourselves much present pain, 
 by reflecting upon the passing nature of human 
 sorrows ; and obtain permanent satisfaction by 
 observing, that the gross darkness which fell 
 upon the people who " refused to retain God in 
 their knowledge,"" andwho multiplied their idols, 
 until, to use the saying of one of their philoso- 
 phers, it was easier in some of their cities to find 
 a god than a man, has been dispelled by the 
 light from heaven. It is excess of folly not to 
 be sohcitous to substitute divine truth for hu- 
 man fiction. Yet, it is much to be lamented, 
 that when we have learned that Charon and 
 Pluto, and the whole rabble rout of heathen dei- 
 ties, are phantoms of the imagination ; now that 
 household gods and ghosts are driven away, as 
 was the shade of Eurydicc, when Orpheus turn- 
 ed to behold her, we are so willing to allow seep- 
 
PESTUM. 9 
 
 ticism to occupy the place which superstition has 
 left vacant. Now that perpetual appeals are 
 not made to the conscience by vulgar supersti- 
 tions, and that the fire of devotion is not kept 
 alive by vain ceremonies, it is to be deplored 
 that too many even of the learned and reflect- 
 ing permit its hallowed flame to be altogether 
 extinguished. In a word, that having escaped 
 from all the terrors of the mysteries of Eleusis, 
 we neglect the intimations of enlightened rea- 
 son, and the well attested discoveries of our 
 holy faith, -in the things that concern the des- 
 tiny of our immortal spirits ! 
 
 When we approach these ancient Temples, 
 and remark the rare union of beauty and ma- 
 jesty in these remains, " against which Time has 
 broken his scythe," we are led to consider hov/ 
 
10 F.ESTUM. 
 
 numerous have been the forms in which Super- 
 stition has arrayed herself to delude her follow- 
 ers. If the arts advance to perfection, the Par- 
 thenon is raised, Phidias labours, Pindar sings 
 the praises of the mighty gods. In a barbarous 
 age, the Druids hide themselves in the reces- 
 ses of the forest ; they perform accursed rites 
 by the glare of midnight torches ; and if they 
 raise a monument, it stands in all the shapeless 
 grandeur of Stonehenge. I cannot help com- 
 paring this remnant of British superstition on 
 Sahsbury Plain, with these finished and magni- 
 ficent ruins upon the shore of the " Tyrrhene 
 Sea." 
 
 Perhaps they who built them were contem- 
 poraries, for history does not give us their age ; 
 and in each case, the generations of living men 
 have retired, — a poet might say — as if fearful of 
 the ancient shades. The moral reflections ex- 
 cited at Stonehenge make mc prefer to sit upon 
 its ruins, to bclioldins: even the bcautv of Pa^s- 
 
P.ESTUM. 11 
 
 turn. Classical antiquity has enshrouded the su- 
 perstitions of Greece with a web of its own tissue 
 and colouring ; and it requires the eye of truth 
 itself to look with suitable abhorrence upon the 
 idolatries of the city of Minerva. But we are 
 left to see man in all his native misery, and dis- 
 cern all his vehement tendencies to evil, when 
 not corrected by divine revelation, in the Bri- 
 tons of the time of Caesar. It is well that some 
 such visible monument should stand to shew 
 us what our fathers were, and what we should 
 have been, without the process of moral renova- 
 tion, which our religion has commenced. It is 
 well that it should stand in solitude, and that 
 Christianity should raise around it — not a tem- 
 ple more .splendid than that of Jupiter Capito- 
 linus — but the encouraging, reviving scene of 
 a population reformed from hellish orgies, re- 
 covered from debasing superstitions, vivified by 
 moral principle, and glowing with such a heart 
 
12 I'.ESTUM. 
 
 of benevolence^ as sends a flow of warm and re- 
 viving charity throughout the world. 
 
 The moral contrast is not strong between Paes- 
 tum two thousand years ago, and Psestum now. 
 Let Stonehenge, then, stand a perpetual monu- 
 ment, to prove how unlike Christianity has made 
 the inha 
 cestors. 
 
 Few places combine within such narrow li- 
 mits so rich a train of various meditation, for 
 persons of whatever disposition or habit, as this 
 city upon the Gulf of Salerno. At a point, re- 
 moved from the sight of civilized life, surround- 
 ed with the rehcs of men who lived in the high- 
 est stage of luxury, he who can only admire 
 ihe skill which raised an architrave, and he who 
 
P.ESTUM. 13 
 
 has fancy enough to picture the living scene 
 of a Grecian city while sitting on its tomb, 
 will find no other interruption than the rapid 
 movement, now and then, of a beautiful hzard, 
 which he has startled from basking in the sun- 
 shine. The still sea at a distance, and the dark 
 mountains upon the opposite side, are both so 
 far away, that not even the dashing of the wa- 
 ter, or the wandering of the clouds, distracts the 
 soul from the present vision. The noxious 
 Mal'aria has thinned the region of its inhabi- 
 tants, and left it to excite, by its solitude, an 
 unbroken chain of musing in one who, in his 
 pilgrimage over Italy, pauses at this remote 
 point. 
 
 It was from Paestum that I was to turn my 
 face homeward. The eye, ^yhich is insatiable, 
 had beheld the choicest wonders of the world, 
 and it was suitable that the last object should be 
 such a ruin, — simple and majestic, like the Pan- 
 theon — lasting as the Coliseum — and lonely as 
 the trackless desart. 
 
14 P.ESTUM. 
 
 A journey in Italy may be compared not un- 
 aptly "with the course of human life. The plains 
 of Lombardy, and the vale of Arno, are rich, 
 and smooth, and beautifiil as youth ; we come 
 to Rome for the sights, and experience, and 
 reflections, which suit manhood ; we return af- 
 ter the bustle of life to the comforts congenial 
 to age, and which are provided in sunshine, and 
 air, and the bounties of nature, as we find them 
 at Naples ; and we at last behold Paestum, as 
 the soberest evening scene, which shuts up our 
 wearisome pilgrimage, and ends our toil. 
 
 The fate of empires and cities concerns us 
 little in comparison with our own destiny ; for 
 each man's bosom is a httle world, and is all the 
 world to him. 
 
[ 15 ] 
 
 POMPEII. 
 
 In returning from the ruins of Paestum, we 
 pass along the sea-shore, as it is said, near the 
 site of the gardens of the Hesperides ; and cer- 
 tainly the groves of orange trees, burdened with 
 ripe fruit in February, were no bad specimen of 
 the fields which required a guard of dragons. 
 The ravages of the MaFaria are such, that be- 
 tween Ebauli and the sea-shore, there is only 
 a scattered and sickly population, spread over 
 a level uninteresting district ; but we have a 
 great variety of scenery, as we come back to a 
 peopled region. The bay of Sqrrento deserves 
 to be compared with the bay of Naples. The 
 precipitous hills, narrow ravines, and superabun- 
 dant verdure, besides Italian air and sky, made 
 this part of the journey delightful. 
 
16 POMPEII. 
 
 We have all read so much of l*ompeii before 
 we see it, that if any description could equal the 
 interest we must feel, we should come to it with 
 feelings exhausted by their own force. In the 
 multiplicity of its objects, and their unequalled 
 variety, this city has pre-eminence above all that 
 antiquity can boast of in Italy and the world. 
 There is no one thing to be compared with the 
 Coliseum for grandeur, nor with the Temple of 
 the Sibyl for beauty ; and yet if we should se- 
 lect but one relic of the world as it stood in the 
 age of Augustus, it would be this city, which a 
 volcano km preserved for the admiration of a 
 distant posterity. 
 
 We enter into the houses of the ancient Ro- 
 mans, and look at all their domestic processes, 
 and behold their theatres, and courts of justice, 
 and temples, and read the inscriptions on their 
 monuments. 
 
 I shall not seek to lift the veil, behind which 
 shovdd we venture to look, we should discern 
 
I'OMPEII. 17 
 
 how infamous was then the state of morals, and 
 how their private chambers were disgraced, and 
 even their pubhc streets, by such gross vices, 
 as Christianity has rid us of, and thrown out to 
 be swept away by the stream of time. Vices, 
 which are now treated hke those ancient crimi- 
 nals, Avho were covered, when justice gave them 
 the reward of their deeds, were in the age of 
 Pliny considered, not crimes to be detested, but 
 faults to be smiled at. 
 
 We have learned with good reason to account 
 the condition of the female sex, the correct guage 
 of our moral atmosphere ; but we cannot behold 
 the paintings upon the walls of the houses of 
 those, who, at Pompeii, musthave had the guid- 
 ance of public taste and morals, without feeling- 
 pity for injured modesty, connected with a de- 
 testation of loathsome and impudeivt corruption. 
 
 The distinction is not always made, in the 
 minds of those who have not visited the places, 
 between Pompeii, which was only covered with 
 
18 roMPEii. 
 
 the cinders of the volcano, and Herculaneuni, 
 which was overspread by the lava in a state of 
 fusion. The first is uncovered to the sun, and 
 the wood of the buildings is only charred. The 
 latter has a city built above it ; and while you 
 visit its theatre by torch-light, you hear the echo 
 of carriages, like the reverberations of distant 
 thunder, rolling over your head. 
 
 The labour of excavation, too, is excessive at 
 Herculaneum, where it is like working in a 
 quarry, with this additional difficulty, that the 
 wall to be preserved is softer than the lava, now 
 a rock, in which it is incrusted. The interest, 
 then, of this city, though it was first discovered, 
 and is incomparably the richer of the two, is 
 very much below that of Pompeii. 
 
 We have here under our eye the palaces about 
 which antiquaries have so much disputed ; — 
 the Forum, Basilica, temples, altars, ^id thea- 
 tres, tragic and comic, and private houses. 
 
 The small number of skeletons found, prove 
 that few persons perished at this place. There 
 
rOMPEII. 19 
 
 were some bodies of prisoners in chains ; and in 
 a few houses the remains of those whom infirmi- 
 ty might detain, or who staid too long, in the 
 hope, perhaps, that the danger would speedily 
 pass over, or from the too eager efforts to pre- 
 serve their treasures. 
 
 A most interesting part of the city, is that 
 immediately beyond the gate towards Naples, 
 where many large and handsome sepulchral 
 monuments remain, as white and clean as if 
 built yesterday : — the monuments of those, upon 
 whom the light of life and immortality display- 
 ed by the Gospel had never shone ! 
 
 Paestum and Pompeii, cities probably filled 
 with life and magnificence at the same period, 
 are now associated in that sepulchral silence, 
 which leaves no voice to tell us what they were, 
 save that within the heart, which says of all 
 their glories, " there is none abiding/^ 
 
20 POMPEII. 
 
 How tranquil, how beautiful, are the ele- 
 ments of our world in their state of repose ! 
 How terrible, when their Author works them 
 into tempest, or mingles poison in their influ- 
 ence ! Who shall delineate the silent and sure 
 destruction which accompanied the jMaFaria, 
 and made the busy crowds of P^estum fade be- 
 fore it, as the simple Charib nations faded and 
 sunk into extinction before the rapacious and 
 civilized invaders who ransacked their soil in 
 search of gold ! What language can describe 
 the more horrible and sudden devastation which 
 fell in visible torrents of flame, and buried the 
 still living, breathing Pompeii in ashes ! 
 
 If the mind"'s eye visits the paradise of beauty 
 which God created, and blessed, and called very 
 good ; and contemplates the peaceful soil burst- 
 ing with luxuriant produce, the balmy breezes, 
 the transparent and flowing waters ; and turns 
 from this picture to consider the mephitic breatli, 
 the trembling earth, and the Hquid flame of 
 
POMPEII. 21 
 
 these regions of desolation ; what marks are here 
 of the destruction that sin has introduced into 
 this fair creation ! — what testimony of the influ- 
 ence of moral over natural things ! It was for 
 man, in his purity, that the earth brought forth 
 fruit and seed after its kind ; it is for man, the 
 transgressor, that the ground is cursed, and that 
 it brings forth thorns and thistles. It is to re- 
 buke his pride, and check his disobedience, that 
 his own aspiring works are ruined. The Pses- 
 tum and Pompeii^of the world still stand in ruin 
 to warn us, as distinctly as they were warned, 
 whose language was confounded on the plain 
 of Shinar, that " man walketh in a vain show, 
 and disquieteth himself in vain," 
 
 The traveller who pauses to meditate among 
 these ruins, cannot but remember, with fearful 
 anticipation, that Rome also is now but the sha- 
 dow of itself; and when he considers the in- 
 roads of the same noxious miasma, in conjunc- 
 tion with the processions, the vestments, the 
 
22 POMPEII. 
 
 tinklings, and illuminations of a delusive super- 
 stition, he will scarcely fail to recollect, that it 
 was said by one inspired of old, "And the voice 
 of harpers and musicians, and of pipers and 
 trumpeters, sliall be heard no more at all in thee : 
 and no craftsman, of whatsoever craft he be, 
 shall be found any more in thee : and the sound 
 of a mill-stone shall be heard no more at all in 
 thee. And the light of a candle shall shine 
 no more at all in thee : and the voice of the 
 bridegroom and of the bride shall be heard no 
 more at all in thee ; for thy merchants were the 
 great men of the earth ; for by thy sorceries were 
 all nations deceived. And in her was found the 
 blood of prophets and of saints, and of all that 
 were slain upon the earth.^"' — Rev. xviii. !^2, 
 23, 24. 
 
[ 23 ] 
 
 NAPLES. 
 
 The populace of Naples are proverbially igno- 
 rant and degraded. The profuse bountifulness 
 of nature grants the necessaries of life, with lit- 
 tle demand for exertion, to the crowds of hu- 
 man beings, who bask themselves in the sunshine 
 upon the shores^of this beautiful bay, and exhi- 
 bit an odious example of the prevalence of filthy 
 and stupid habits. The chmate is so temperate, 
 that some observers pretend that one half of the 
 inhabitants of this great city live out of doors ; 
 only retiring during the night to some shelter. 
 At any rate, we see here very long streets, 
 through which you can scarcely make your way, 
 they being crowded with coblers' stalls and la- 
 bouring artizans, who salute your ears with all 
 the din of toil. But these, while they take the 
 
24 NAPLES. 
 
 same advantage of the mildness of the sky, are 
 in striking contrast with the indolent, who linger 
 on the shore and around the quarter where the 
 fishermen dwell, apparently without an anxious 
 thought how they are to satisfy the hunger with 
 which the evening will assail them. It is not 
 to be supposed, that people who have so little 
 foresight in matters so near at hand, and so lit- 
 tle anxiety to guard against evils which are most 
 appalling, even to our animal nature, should be 
 solicitous about political privileges which they 
 cannot understand, and sacrifice present ease 
 to obtain rights for a distant posterity. 
 
 We have seen the people of England roused 
 by such a motive, as the disgrace of leaving their 
 children stripped of ancient privileges. They 
 might perhaps have endured for themselves grie- 
 vances, which they could not endure to transmit 
 to their offspring. 
 
 The revolution in the government of the Uni- 
 ted States of America was mainly caused by this 
 
NAPLES. 25 
 
 magnanimous incentive. The evils complain- 
 ed of were almost exclusively viewed as seeds of 
 heavier calamity than they at the time expe- 
 rienced. The war was the result of the pros- 
 pective wisdom of less than three millions of 
 energetic yeomen, who claimed the privileges of 
 Englishmen; who never alleged that they could 
 not pay the stamp-duty, or the tea-tax, but 
 only that it was demanded in an unconstitutional 
 manner. This revolution is the single example 
 on record, if \y;e read the oldest letter on the 
 scroll of history, where a whole nation has risen 
 in support of its abstract rights, and reasoned 
 itself into the conviction, that it was better to re- 
 sist a wrong in the outset, than to purchase an 
 immunity, from even a seven years' war, by a 
 light payment to ancient rulers. This prospec- 
 tive wisdom could not have been displayed if the 
 principle had not been incessantly recognized, 
 that representation in Parliament and taxation 
 must go together. 
 
2(i NAPLES. 
 
 But at Naples, the lowest order have no know- 
 ledge of past examples, and no present energy, 
 and they can be moved only by appeals to then- 
 passions. They are deficient in that character 
 which might place them under the direction of 
 the intelligence of the higher class. The brunt 
 of war must fall upon the multitude ; the ma- 
 teriel out of which armies are formed, must be 
 found in the fields and highways : those who 
 have nothing to lose but their lives, must stand 
 before those who have property and life at stake, 
 and who can avoid risking the one, by a par- 
 tial sacrifice of the other. The privileged class, 
 upon whom the highest honours are conferred, 
 since, by their inferiority of numbers, they can 
 do least by their physical energy, come last into 
 the contest. Some of the experiments of Murat 
 prove, that it will require long training to pre- 
 pare this people for war. No doubt, the same 
 evil principles swell in their bosoms, which are 
 excited in the hearts of others, and the same mur- 
 
NAPLES. 27 
 
 derous passions ; but they have no patience or 
 fortitude. They might serve in a partizan war, 
 where the way is left open for a rapid retreat 
 after a rapid onset ; but they cannot be expect- 
 ed to resist the mechanical skill and steady 
 march of an old soldiery, who seldom think but 
 as their officers command them, and who never 
 calculate the chances of life and death. It is 
 only a people whose energies are daily called out 
 to combat with difficulties, and to endure what 
 are felt to be parivations, and to look to them- 
 selves for aid to vanquish interposing obstacles, 
 that can be expected to overcome such mighty 
 barriers as have been set up by the high powers 
 of Europe, to keep the Neapolitans in their pre- 
 sent degradation. It is not a people who have 
 been fed daily at the door of a monastery, or 
 by the hand of passing charity, that could, in 
 such untoward circumstances, contend long for 
 an emancipation from the enthralment of foreign 
 dictators, and from the despotism of tyrants at 
 
28 NAPLES. 
 
 home. No ! it is a people, who have found, by 
 the experience of years, how Heaven helps those 
 who labour to help themselves, — a people who 
 have mental power enough to form for them- 
 selves an ideal standard of excellence, for the 
 attainment of which they can endure hardship 
 and practise self-denial, who will ultimately 
 achieve for themselves the blessing of liberty, 
 and all the moral elevation which is the natural 
 result of its possession. 
 
 The modern processes of ordinary war quite 
 spoil the romance which onceencircled bloodshed 
 and crime in a halo of glory. There is little now 
 left for individual enterprize. Before the battle, 
 we only number the regiments, and the cannon, 
 and afterwards talk of this general, and that bat- 
 tery ; and the excitement of patriotism is not al- 
 ways an over-match for the impulse communi- 
 cated by the love of party. 
 
 It is to be hoped, that hberal principles are 
 extending, and that in any event this garden of 
 
the world will become the scene of the victo- 
 ries of freedom and truth, over slavery and su- 
 perstition ; but it is time alone which can cure 
 evils, which time has rooted deep into the soil. 
 We hail the progress of political illumination, 
 as about to introduce with it a moral improve- 
 ment. When the censorship of the press is taken 
 away, and free assemblies permitted to the peo- 
 ple, among other books the Bible may be circu- 
 lated, and religion become the object of research. 
 The Carbonari, though the first reason of their 
 association was political, are unquestionably more 
 open to free discussion and the dissemination of 
 general knowledge, than any other individuals in 
 the south of Italy ; and whatever offences they 
 may really commit, or be falsely accused of, they 
 are to be honoured for desiring to change that 
 worst of systems under which they have been 
 oppressed. It was believed that gi-eat numbers 
 of this sect would willingly have received and 
 read the New Testament, if the Archbishop of 
 
30 NAPLES. 
 
 Naples, in 1818, had permitted the Italian Ca- 
 tholic version to have gone forth from the press. 
 In the development of new ideas, caused by 
 the late fluctuations in government, we see the 
 beginning of a work, which is not to end until 
 the face of Europe be changed, when Christian 
 principles shall supplant hoary-headed vices. 
 Perhaps not many generations are to intervene 
 before the world shall see moral health and beau- 
 ty pervading this region — where the traveller 
 now finds all that is exquisite in physical na- 
 ture, and all that is most sinful and degrading 
 in man. We know from infallible authority, 
 that such a view it shall exhibit one day, when 
 not only " the wilderness and solitary place" 
 shall bloom, but the crowded city and busy mart 
 be filled with men benevolent in their princi- 
 ples, pure in their habits, and having a heaven- 
 ly abode in certain prospect. 
 
31 
 
 The physical phenomena in the vicinity of 
 Naples, suggest some points of comparison with 
 its moral aspect. The Apostle Paul landed at 
 Pozzuoli on his way to Rome, and the disciples 
 of our Lord, by a course of unwearied exertion, 
 reclaimed all this part of Italy from the most 
 degrading idolatries. But superstitions scarcely 
 less senseless have now taken the place of for- 
 mer deities. Thus, when the burning lava has 
 overspread a fertile region, the genial influences 
 of the sky in the end produce verdm*e and fruit- 
 fulness. But presently after, another eruption 
 destroys alike the labours of man, and the boun- 
 ties of heaven. 
 
 The worship of St Januarius has the most 
 revolting features of blinded paganism. 
 
 I never beheld any scene more abhorrent to 
 
32 NAPLES, 
 
 my ideas of religious service, than I once met 
 with in the streets of Naples. There was a dis- 
 orderly procession through one of the quarters 
 of the city, of which notice was given at every 
 resting place, by the discharge of small fire arms. 
 At short intervals, along the streets, the peo- 
 ple, according to their devotion or wealth, had 
 fitted up an altar, upon which candles were 
 burning before a picture of the Virgin. An 
 image of the saint as large as life, composed of 
 wood, covered with tinfoil, was elevated upon 
 a platform, and borne upon the shoulders of four 
 men. When the procession halted, one of the 
 populace who officiated, smoked the figure with 
 incense, wiped its face carefully with his pocket 
 handkerchief, and taking a paper of sugar-plums 
 from his bosom, threw them out upon the head 
 of the image ; — the boys underneath gathered 
 them up, — the mob shouted, the little guns were 
 fired ofl*, and they proceeded some furlongs far- 
 ther to repeat the same mummery. 
 
While I was sitting in my apartment one day, 
 a Franciscan monk was ushered in, who pro- 
 duced some very fine oranges, as an offering to 
 induce me to endure the interruption of his pre- 
 sence, and to act liberally towards my unbidden 
 guest. I paid him something more than any 
 other dealer in golden fruit would have received, 
 and dismissed him with a feeling of admiration 
 at the condescension of that church, which, while 
 it has provided Cardinals to hold intercomrse 
 with Princes — and Prelates to govern territo- 
 ries, has not disdained to appoint monks as 
 chapmen of indulgencies, and mendicant friars 
 to retail fruit for the benefit of the populace and 
 Jbrestieri. 
 
 This son of St Francis, with his shaven head 
 and bare feet, and brown woollen garments, and 
 girdle of leather, seemed better fitted to eat ma- 
 caroni, than to sing Ave Maria ; and was not a 
 whit more of a devotional figure than the bro- 
 ther of this fraternity, who is styled hennit by 
 
34 NAPLES. 
 
 courtesy, and retails wine and refreshments near 
 the summit of Mount Vesuvius, for the benefit 
 of weary and curious travellers. 
 
 It was in Lent, during which season only 
 these indolent ecclesiastics preach, that I heard 
 a priest haranguing against John Huss and Je- 
 rome of Prague, and the shocking blasphemies 
 they had published about the Virgin. How much 
 better would it have been to leave the ashe^ of 
 these heretical martyrs to repose in the Lake of 
 Constance, that he might exert his force against 
 evils at home ! Surely even a Catholic must ac- 
 knowledge that some of their superstitions are 
 monstrous evils. They who are intelligent, profess 
 to use images only as means of exciting sluggish 
 devotion ; but they cannot deny, that the pppu- 
 lace worship literally the senseless idol. This 
 
NAPLES. 35 
 
 is the natural result of the display of human in- 
 genuity in the manner of adoring our Creator. 
 When we leave His own model, and seek to im- 
 prove upon its divine simplicity, we first lead 
 ourselves astray from the truth, and open the 
 way into an endless labyrinth of mischievous 
 wanderings. 
 
 But christian truth, in the time of the Apostle 
 Paul, vanquished error upon this very soil. — 
 With what attractions superstition was then 
 adorned, we may conceive from what we now see 
 of the remains of the Temple of Jupiter Serapis, 
 which are the most remarkable relics of antiqui- 
 ty at Pozzuoli. According to the evidence of 
 some inscriptions found among the ruins, the 
 building was constructed one hundred and five 
 years before the birth of our Saviour. It is in 
 the very best style of architecture ; and an asto- 
 nishing quantity of the richest marbles is la- 
 vished on this magnificent edifice. The most 
 of them are rare and precious. There are three 
 
36 NAPLES. 
 
 columns of the portico standing, and one fallen. 
 They consist, each, of a single piece of Cipollino 
 marble, five feet in diameter, and forty-two feet 
 high. It is wonderful that a column of such mag- 
 nitude could be taken from the quarry, and safe- 
 ly transported across the sea. But the same sur- 
 prise is excited to a greater degree, by a view of 
 the Egyptian obelisks at Rome, and the co- 
 lumns of Egyptian granite which form the por- 
 tico of the Pantheon. 
 
 It is not easy for a Protestant to enter into the 
 feeling of profound reverence with which a Ca- 
 tholic regards the ceremonies of his church, and 
 the sanctity of its earthly head. We sometimes 
 quite forget, while we look at the officiating 
 .priest, that the people beheve that the words 
 which he utters consecrate the wafer, and change 
 
NAPLES. 37 
 
 its nature entirely. We count the number of the 
 attendants, and remark the richness of their gar- 
 ments, or the exquisite finish of the altar, while 
 the unhappy ignorant multitude adore the pre- 
 sent god. Words which seem to us no better 
 than a charm, to the hearing of a Catholic work 
 a miracle. 
 
 But if we seek to understand the real state of 
 the case, either in the hope of enlightening the 
 ignorant, or of instructing ourselves by the in- 
 spection of that downward course by which the 
 best gift of heaven has been depraved, we must 
 examine the thousand folds, which are laid one 
 upon another to disfigure and conceal that pure 
 and undefiled religion, which was the first prin- 
 ciple of life in this gigantic system. We must 
 not be startled, as we approach this building, 
 the work of ages, at the narrow passages, and 
 low arches, and winding stairs, by which alone 
 we can penetrate into the innermost sanctuary ; 
 for we must know the way in, if we seek to lead 
 
38 NAPLES. 
 
 Others out, from their adoration of the enshrined 
 relics. 
 
 It is obvious to the most careless observer, 
 that the perversion of divine religion in the Ro- 
 mish church, has originated in the substitution 
 of appeals to the senses, in the place of the sim- 
 ple forms which belong to genuine Christianity, 
 from which have been removed the ceremonial 
 observances of the ancient Jewish dispensation. 
 Ignorant, worldly-minded, or crafty politicians 
 and priests, desirous to conciliate the multitude 
 by outward glare, and to reconcile the splendid 
 and absurd mythology of ancient Rome, with 
 the humbling doctrines of the Cross, continually 
 borrowed services from Pagan superstition, till 
 the spirit and form of the gospel were almost 
 u^tterly destroyed. We may condemn the icon- 
 oclastic zeal of the reformers ; but perhaps so 
 long as the monuments of the monastic orders 
 should have stood, the prejudices of the people 
 would have lingered on ; nay, they might have 
 
revived in their full force, and produced a will- 
 ing submission to Rome's supremacy. Then 
 we should have seen orjelt, without going on a 
 pilgrimage, how rivetted are the chains which 
 the self-styled vicegerent of heaven coils around 
 the hearts of his followers. 
 
4<0 ST Peter's. 
 
 ST PETER'S. 
 
 Human ingenuity has never imagined any 
 theatre for the display of religious ceremonies, 
 more magnificent than is the church of St Pe- 
 ter. I do not believe that Imperial Rome, in 
 the time of its greatest splendour, possessed a 
 single edifice so sublime and perfect. Michael 
 Angelo alone could have devised such boldness 
 of architecture, and the spoils of the world were 
 necessary to fill up the mighty outhne. When 
 in the dome he suspended in the air his copy 
 of the Pantheon, he erected a monument to his 
 fame, not surpassed by the Temple of Agrippa. 
 The exquisite finish of the parts is equal to the 
 grandeur of the whole ; and what less could .be 
 expected, when Raphael, and Dominichino, and 
 
ST Peter's. 41 
 
 Guido, were called to complete what Michael 
 Angelo had designed. To perpetuate their ge- 
 nius, the fleeting colours of the canvass have been 
 transferred to the JVfosaic copies, and the Trans- 
 figuration and Last Supper of St Jerome, are 
 altar pieces as unchanging as the pictures from 
 Adrian's villa, which adorn the Museum of the 
 Capitol. 
 
 If the bounds of this world might circum- 
 scribe our curiosity, it is worth a pilgrimage 
 round it, to behold this single object, the mo«t 
 perfect, in spite of some faults, of all human 
 works ; and the traveller who has this picture in 
 his imagination, is rich for life. 
 
 When at the first view of the interior of St 
 Peter s — for I think we are all disappointed with 
 the exterior, until we examine it closely, — we be- 
 hold the mighty columns, the magnificent sta- 
 tues, the brilliant roof, the rich chapels, and the 
 brazen baldaquin imder the mighty dome ; — we 
 feel that we stand where Charlemagne and Hil- 
 
42 ST Peter's. 
 
 debrand might have met as compeers ; — we see 
 as in one perspective, what we have before ga- 
 thered in detail, that it was indeed an immense 
 structure, which bound together the remotest' 
 parts of Christendom — under an iron domina- 
 tion, which gave the right to a proud priest to 
 force Emperor and King to hold his stirrup. 
 
 But these reflections are too stern to bear 
 their sway long, for the admiration of the work 
 shadows our remembrance of the infamy of those 
 who bviilt it. We would not mingle the memory 
 of the prodigality of Leo X., or the crimes of 
 Alexander VI., or the tyranny of Sixtus Quin- 
 tus, with our elevated feeling in beholding tliis 
 masterpiece of human science and sentiment : 
 for what richness of sentiment is there in all the 
 paintings, and what immense knowledge in rai- 
 .sing these mighty arches I 
 
 The object which most forcibly affected my 
 imagination on entering this Temple, was the 
 light which is reflected through a stained win- 
 
ST PETER S. "HO 
 
 dow beyond the high altar, at the farthest point 
 of distance, where St Peter's chair is erected, 
 supported by four colossal brazen statues of the 
 four great Doctors of the Church. A dove is 
 painted upon the glass, and the rich yellow co- 
 louring is so brilliant as to strike the eye at six 
 hundred feet distance, which is the length of the 
 interior. It operates almost like a secret spell to 
 make you believe in a spiritual presence there, 
 which is to be approached most reverently. 
 
 As you advance towards it, and the building 
 opens, and the arches seem to enlarge, and above 
 all, the dome to disclose itself, the richness and 
 grandeur of all the parts quite overwhelm the 
 attention, and we are wilhng to have it diverted 
 by something more sacred. This the Catholic 
 finds in the tomb of St Peter, surrounded as it 
 is by forty-two lamps, which always burn in ho- 
 nour of him whom they style Prince of the 
 Apostles. 
 
 / Such a claim to local interest as the real 
 ashes of the Apostle, affects the traveller little; 
 
44 ST Peter's. 
 
 for not only St Peter's and Rome, but Italy is 
 filled with fabulous histories of our Christian 
 worthies. It is not more worth while to examine 
 when this tomb was erected, than whether the 
 statue by the side of it — of which the Pope, in 
 common with his Catholic subjects, kisses the 
 toe — be really the bronze, as antiquaries as- 
 sert, upon which stood the head of the image of 
 Jupiter Capitolinus when worshipped by Pagan 
 Rome. 
 
 I saw St Peter's, when it was illuminated by 
 the cross suspended from the dome, and the ef- 
 fect of light and shade was superlatively fine. 
 No where did it strike me more than when the 
 light fell upon the gigantic statues which adorn 
 the tombs of the Popes, especially upon that of 
 Clement XIII., where we see Canova's Sleep- 
 ing Lions and watchful Genius, which is the 
 most aff'ecting representation of an angelic being 
 I ever beheld in marble. 
 
 At this very time the crowd was adoring the 
 numerous relics, which were exhibited from a 
 
ST Peter's- 45 
 
 lofty gallery upon the right side of the altar, 
 where they effectually escaped all minute inves- 
 tigation. I was principally curious to behold 
 that of St Veronica's handkerchief; for they 
 say, that when our Saviour was bearing his cross 
 to Calvary, she wiped his sacred face, which 
 left an exact likeness upon the napkin. There 
 seems a familiarity almost profane in merely re- 
 lating such a story. But all these rehcs are so 
 carefully put up in glass-cases, and exhibited 
 from such a height, that they do wisely who re- 
 verently bend their heads ; they see just as 
 much as they who act with more indiscreet cu- 
 riosity. 
 
 It is the most active of all the excitements to 
 imagination, to wander in the twilight produced 
 in the remote aisles by the illuminated dome. 
 Happy they, whose spirits, instead of running 
 into the opposite extreme of irreligion, can rise 
 in a flame of pure and devoted gratitude to God, 
 for an enfranchisement from the chains of su- 
 perstition ! 
 
[ 46 ] 
 
 PILGRIMS AT ROME. 
 
 An immense crowd of strangers assembles from 
 all parts of the world to behold the ceremonies 
 of the Holy Week ; and the confessionals for 
 people of every tongue occupy a conspicuous 
 place in the transept of St Peter's, which is the 
 central point for pilgrims from all lands. But 
 the period is passed when they were counted by 
 hundreds of thousands, and the whole popula- 
 tion of Rome does not now half equal w hat is 
 storied of the number of its former visitors. 
 
 In the Holy Week of 183 8, the pilgrims who 
 fell in my way had fewer poetical and rehgious 
 attributes than those could well imagine who 
 had only read of them in verse and legend. The 
 men who bore scallop shell and sandal shoon in 
 the olden time, liave been much indebted to the 
 
PILGRIMS AT ROME. 47 
 
 vigorous fancy of the poets, or else the species 
 has degenerated, as Buffon says the human race 
 does in America. 
 
 In the south of France, I met with three dif- 
 ferent pilgrims who had their poetical append- 
 ages. Long coloured garments, cockle shells, 
 sandals, and beard, all bore evidence to their 
 sanctity. The children at the villages came out 
 to touch them, and even a little familiarly felt 
 their beards, while the pilgrims bore their scru- 
 tiny with condescending gravity. 
 
 But in the whole of Italy I never saw one who 
 did not quite disgust me. A slouched hat, an 
 oiled cloth for the shoulders, and a sturdy stick, 
 was their only equipage, besides a large string of 
 beads and a crucifix ; and their countenances 
 bore the impress of that sort of character which 
 is seldom roused by any other than animal pas- 
 sions. They all appeared much alike. As I left 
 Loretto, they were scattered on the road almost 
 to Foligno, about to visit La Santissiraa Casa 
 
48 PILGRIMS AT ROME. 
 
 upon the fete of the Virgin. They were such 
 looking people as are gathered at Rome in the 
 same garb, principally from Fondi, which is the 
 greatest receptacle of villains in the neighbour- 
 ing territory. 
 
 They come to Rome during the Holy Week 
 to be fed at the monasteries, and to have their 
 feet -washed by a Cardinal and his attendants. 
 
 I was curious to see the ceremony of washing 
 and feeding them, and to observe how his Ex- 
 cellency, who had a seat in the Roman Conclave, 
 would descend to this lowly office. And, in 
 truth, the dexterity evinced was admirable. A 
 very good-looking pilgrim was selected for IVIon- 
 signore, and his silk stockings stripped off 
 The princely labourer did not fatigue himself 
 by his exertion, but speedily had done with his 
 example of humility and benevolence. Those 
 who had scarcely shoe without stocking fell into 
 inferior hands. Roman ladies of rank perform 
 11 
 
PILGRIMS AT ROME, 49 
 
 similar services for female pilgrims in another 
 part of this same Monastery. 
 
 The ceremony of the Pope's washing pilgrims' 
 feet, and afterwards serving them at table, if it 
 could have been exhibited with less bustle, might 
 have affected the imagination ; but the hall is 
 not large, and was crowded to excess. Among 
 the thirteen Apostles, as they call them, was an 
 Abyssinian ; for they are always anxious, in this 
 theatrical rehgion, to possess as various claims 
 to our attention as possible. 
 
 I could see nothing but a puerile affectation 
 of humility in this employment of the self-styled 
 Holy Father. The splendid service of plate 
 and external pomp, agreed little with what pro- 
 fessed to be an earthly copy of the condescend- 
 ing kindness of our glorified Lord. It did not 
 carry the fancy back with unmingled devotion 
 to the time when He was a man of sorrows, and 
 acquainted with grief, and abundant in painful 
 labours. But in the way of contrast, it brought to 
 
50 PILGRIMS AT ROME. 
 
 view the abuses -which have tarnished Christiani- 
 ty, hke dust from the wheels of time. Her beauty 
 had been soiled when the princes of the earth 
 met in council to prepare a robe of earthly tissue, 
 to adorn, as they supposed, this heavenly being; 
 for they sought to conceal her humble origin in 
 their later glories. The Lord, who dwelt with 
 fishermen, needs not such mimicries to keep 
 alive the history of his works ; and since his re- 
 ligion is one of self-denial, and especially of non- 
 conformity to the world, these scenes, which 
 bring us nearer to the spirit of this generation, 
 are unchristian in their tendency, as they have 
 been unholy in their design. They originated 
 in the fixed purpose to captivate men by all 
 means to obedience, not to the faith, but to the 
 popedom ; and are continued against the en- 
 lightened sense of the nineteenth century. 
 
 The numerous spectators of this show, being 
 generally of the better order of foreigners, were 
 for the most part Protestant; and except the 
 
PILGRIMS AT ROME. 51 
 
 King of Spain, the Ex-King of Holland, and 
 Prince Hereditary of Bavaria, and a few other 
 Catholics of rank, they gaped at it, as at any 
 other theatrical exhibition. 
 
 The Pope appeared very good-natured du- 
 ring his labours, and smiled when he came to 
 the difficult task of mingling the water and the 
 wine, in such proportions as should not seem 
 too frugal, nor yet too free. 
 
[ 52 ] 
 
 PAPAL CEREMONIES. 
 
 On Palm Sunday, at the early hour of nine, 
 the ceremonies commenced at the Pope's Cha- 
 pel at the Palace of Monte Cavallo. Here were 
 a benediction and distribution of palms, a pro- 
 cession through the great Hall, and High Mass. 
 It is not necessary to enter into the important 
 details of the number of the Cardinals, the colour 
 of their garments, the time when their attend- 
 ants coil up their robes, or the number of ge- 
 nuflexions they make when they advance to 
 receive the consecrated branch. The spectators 
 were very numerous ; and after Cardinals, and 
 Bishops, and heads of religious orders had ob- 
 tained this token of Papal favour, some laymen 
 of rank approached to take their share in, the 
 honour and sanctity of the gift. 
 
I'APAL CEKEiMONlKS. 53 
 
 In the procession which followed through 
 tlie great Hall, the Pope was covered in his 
 chair of state, with a palm in his hand, and all 
 chaunted the service, which was to commemo- 
 rate the joy of the multitude, when our Saviour 
 entered Jerusalem. Mass was afterwards cele- 
 brated ; and the whole ceremony was quite as 
 tiresome as that at Candlemas, when, much in 
 the same manner, there was a consecration and 
 distribution of candles, in memory of the puri- 
 fication of the Virgin. 
 
 On the following Wednesday, at the Sixtine 
 Chapel, the first Miserere is sung, and can never 
 be listened to without profound feeling. It is 
 said that the music which was written for this 
 chapel cannot be performed elsewhere with the 
 same effect ; and in a matter where fancy has so 
 much play as in the effect of music, it can easi- 
 ly be imagined that the associations of the place 
 should give an exquisite tone of sentiment to the 
 whole. I shall never lose the recollection of the 
 
54 PAPAL CEREMONIES. 
 
 solemn sensations produced by the first note of 
 the " Miserere mei, Domine." The evening had 
 gradually shut in ; I had been observing the 
 Last Judgment of Michael Angelo, which oc- 
 cupies all the large space of wall behind the 
 great altar. The scene had faded to my eye, 
 until only the more vivid figures could be per- 
 ceived ; and when realities almost sunk into 
 shades, and pictures seemed realities — as the 
 lights upon the altar were all, save one, extin- 
 guished — the Cardinals, and the whole assem- 
 bly fell upon their knees, and in the dead si- 
 lence, the choir chaunted, " Pity me, O God." 
 It was the single occasion in which, as a Pro- 
 testant, I could not, and did not wish to restrain 
 my sympathy. And so much did the music 
 force each one to shrink from contact, and pre- 
 pare for a spiritual supervision, that in the crowd 
 I felt alone, and could willingly have wept in 
 penitence for myself, and in adoring commise- 
 ration for my Lord. 
 
PAPAL CKIIKMONIES. 45 
 
 A specimen from the services of a single day 
 will prove the minuteness of the Romish cere- 
 monial, and how far it is removed from the sim- 
 plicity of the gospel. On the morning of the 
 Thursday of the Holy Week, mass is celebra- 
 ted by a Cardinal Deacon, or in his place, by 
 the oldest Cardinal Bishop. The altar and the 
 cross are covered with a white veil : the candles 
 are all of white wax. Upon the covering of the 
 altar is represented the dead body of Jesus 
 Christ, supported by two angels. The Pope 
 appears with a golden mitre on his head, and in 
 a white garment. The Cardinals, with their 
 violet caps, bow at the beginning of the mass. 
 Before the elevation of the Host, twelve attend- 
 ants, in red garments, with lighted torches, ap- 
 pear and kneel, six on each side of the altar. 
 
OO I'APAL CEREMONIES. 
 
 The Cardinal Deacon, who celebrates the ser- 
 vice, washes his hands with water, which is ad- 
 ministered to him by " one of his own gentle- 
 men," who stands if the Pope be present, but 
 kneels if he be absent. After the elevation or 
 the Host, two masters of ceremonies distribute 
 the candles among the Cardinals, and all the 
 others, who are to assist at the procession. 
 
 Mass being ended, and the benediction given 
 by the Pope, after the Cardinals have changed 
 their dress, they, the Patriarchs, Archbishops, 
 Bishops, mitred Abbots, &c. &c. with their can- 
 dles and mitres in their hands, enter into the 
 Pauline chapel, which is lighted with 567 can- 
 dles — when they sing, Verhimi Caro. 
 
 When all this service is concluded, the pro- 
 cession passes to the gallery, whence is given 
 the solemn benediction to the people. 
 
 Of all the ceremonies of the Romish church, 
 the public benediction, which is pronounced 
 from the gallery of St Peter''s upon the multi- 
 
I'APAL CEREMONIES. 57 
 
 tude assembled in the great palace below, is by 
 far the grandest. The Pope is brought out in 
 his chair of state, with a canopy over his head, 
 which is supported by eight prelates, and with 
 fans of peacock's feathers on each side, and gives 
 the triple blessing ; to which the Amen is re- 
 sponded, by the discharge of the artillery of the 
 neighbouring Castle of St Angelo, the ringing 
 of the bells of St Peter's, and the echo of all the 
 military music of the cavalry and infantry col- 
 lected in grand parade. It was performed on 
 Holy Thursday, and repeated to a larger crowd, 
 with diminished effect, as I thought, on Easter 
 Sunday. But the spectacle is ever prodigiously 
 imposijig, to behold such an immense multitude 
 assembled in so wide a place, surrounded with 
 a semicircular colonnade, and adorned with an 
 obelisk and fountains in front of this majestic 
 edifice, upon the Vatican Mount, in the act of 
 receiving a blessing, which they conceive to be 
 an authoritative dispensation of kindness from 
 
58 I'APAL CEREMONIES. 
 
 the Lord of earth and heaven. The following 
 is the formula of benediction : — 
 
 " The Holy Apostles, Peter and Paul, in 
 whose power and authority we confide, them- 
 selves intercede for us with the Lord. Amen. 
 
 " Through the prayers and merits of the bless- 
 ed Mary, always a virgin, the blessed Arch- 
 angel IMichael, the blessed John the Baptist, 
 and the Holy Apostles, Peter and Paul, and 
 all the Saints, may the Almighty God pity you ; 
 and all your sins being remitted, may Jesus 
 Christ bring you to eternal life. Amen. 
 
 " May the Almighty and Merciful Lord grant 
 you indulgence, absolution, and remission of 
 all your sins, during your true and fruitful pe- 
 nitence, a heart always penitent, and amend- 
 ment of life — the grace and consolation of the 
 Holy Spirit, and final perseverance in good 
 works. Amen. 
 
 " And may the blessing of Almighty God, the 
 
PAPAL CEKEMONIES. 59 
 
 Father, the Son, and the Holy Ghost, descend 
 upon you, and ever remain. Amen." 
 
 We perceive in this form of blessing, whose 
 merits are principally regarded in this system of 
 corrupt Christianity, which seizes exclusively 
 upon its honourable titles. The intercessions 
 of Apostles, the merits of the Virgin, of an 
 Archangel, and all the Saints, are to be the 
 ground upon which God is to exercise compas- 
 sion, and Jesus Christ to give eternal life. How 
 many mediators and saviours has this depraved 
 religion substituted in its calendar, for the " only 
 name under Heaven whereby we can be saved." 
 An idolatry of human beings, deified in some 
 unaccountable manner, is made to intervene be- 
 tween the knowledge of the true God, and Jesus 
 Christ whom He has sent. The Apostle him- 
 self, who rent his garment when they would sa- 
 crifice to him as Mercury, is now made the elo- 
 quent medium by Avhich our prayers are to be 
 prepared to reach the ears of the Lord of Hea- 
 
60 I'Al'AL CE1115M0NIES. 
 
 veil. There is a consistency in this heresy, an 
 openness in the avowal of its monstrous doc- 
 trines, which covdd never have been attained, if 
 the Holy Scriptures had not been hidden under 
 the decrees of councils, and histories of Popes ; 
 and it needs but slender knowledge of the au- 
 thoritative canons of God, to disperse this cloud- 
 iness, as mist before the sun. A transient 
 comparison of this church with her oldest sta- 
 tutes, will prove her fallibility, and strip the 
 Holy Roman Catholic Apostolic Church of all 
 pretence of apostolical direction. 
 
 As to the indulgence and absolution, if it had 
 never gone further than it does in this blessing, 
 it had been a very harmless matter ; for the 
 Pope need not array himself in the pomp of this 
 world, to affirm the unchanging declaration of 
 Heaven, that he who smites upon his breast and 
 cries, " God be merciful to me a sinner," goes 
 down to his house justified ; or that he who 
 proves his penitence by an obedient life, may 
 
PAPAL Cl-.IIEMONIES. 61 
 
 hope that the mercy of God shall bring him to 
 eternal happiness. But when Tetzel sold in- 
 dulgences to build this theatre for ecclesiastical 
 pomp, and asserted that the souls in purgatory 
 were relieved the instant that the money chink- 
 ed in his chest, the doctrine became a destruc- 
 tive delusion, and an imposing cheat ; and as 
 Tetzel held the doctrine before Luther spoke 
 against it, so do the populace now hold it in 
 every part of this country. Every religion is 
 to be estimated, not according to its professed, 
 but its practical principles ; and is such as the 
 multitude understand it to be, and not what the 
 learned may describe it as having been. 
 
 Yet, with such fatal errors, all is not false 
 which has come down vipon the stream of anti- 
 quity. We have the distinct avowal of the fun- 
 damental doctrine of the Holy Trinity, the es- 
 sential article of a Christian's faith, which de- 
 clares a fact, the manner of which we cannot 
 explain, any more than how fields of waving corn 
 
62 PAPAL CEREMONIES. 
 
 are produced from seeds apparently dead, or 
 how the spring renews the face of nature ; but 
 which we are to believe upon the testimony of 
 God himself, as we believe in the processes of 
 nature from our own experience. This faith is 
 a proof of deference to the Supreme Being, 
 which it is right He should demand from crea- 
 tures of our limited capacity, who should bow 
 instead of pretending to understand the manner 
 of the Divine existence. At this doctrine, when 
 we have examined the Scriptures, we must take 
 our stand, and say, with our immortal Bacon, 
 " if we believe only that which is agreeable to 
 our sense, we give consent to the matter and not 
 to the author, which is no more than we would 
 do towards a suspected and discredited wit- 
 ness."* The Author of divine revelation is 
 honoured, when we examine by our reason the 
 proofs he has attached to it, and being satisfied 
 
 * Adv. of Learning. Book II. 
 
PAPAL CEREMONIES. 63 
 
 with the evidence, take from the ob\dous sense 
 of its expressions the facts which can be under- 
 stood, and those which can never be explained. 
 The Pope, sitting, reads with a loud voice 
 the benediction from a book, which is held by a 
 bishop, who has in his other hand a lighted can- 
 dle. When he comes to the doxology, he rises, 
 makes three crosses towards the people, then 
 raises his hand towards heaven, and afterwards 
 laying it on his breast, resumes his seat. Then 
 one Cardinal-deacon reads in Latin, and an- 
 other in Italian, the plenary indulgence to all 
 present; the papers are cast down into the 
 square, and thus the assembly is dismissed. 
 
 No man can resist the impression produced 
 by the sight of so vast a multitude obeying a 
 signal from a single individual, and prostrating 
 themselves in his presence. When the bless- 
 ing is concluded and they rise at once, the still 
 solemn silence is exchanged for the buzz and 
 movement of life, the cannons are discharged. 
 
64 TAPAL CEREMONIES. 
 
 and the bells resound, and we seem to have 
 reached an era in existence. 
 
 The Catholic, with that versatility which so 
 often shocks our most serious feelings, hastens 
 from this, which he esteems a most holy scene, 
 with the fantastic lightness of a thoughtless 
 worshipper. 
 
 But the Protestant cannot so readily leave such 
 a spot, and must rather lean against a column 
 of the portico, and look at the retreating crowd, 
 and reflect how each owe of them retires with a 
 flattering unction laid upon his soul, which may 
 be deadly as the serpent's fang, — that the delu- 
 sion, which is cherished by such vain-glorious 
 pomp, is like the poisoned fountain which sends 
 its streams into every family ; that religion, in- 
 stead of being the vigorous plant which bears 
 the fruit that nourishes, and the leaf that heals, 
 is here the source of ignorance and mother of 
 imposture, which has gendered miracles and ly- 
 ing wonders, and set up human authority in a 
 
PAPAL CEREMONIES. 65 
 
 mortal man, in the place of Him whom God 
 commands his angels to honour. 
 
 For let us observe Italian society as it is now 
 constituted. Look at the disruption of all do- 
 mestic ties and desecration of all moral duties ; 
 and see how crimes, which pollute the very source 
 of being, and destroy ahke youth and age, are 
 not expelled by this religion, which should act 
 with the greatest force nearest the seat of life ; 
 — and then let us say, whether the Romish re- 
 ligion be not responsible at the bar of com- 
 mon reason and unprejudiced philanthropy, for 
 the crimes which degrade Italy below the level 
 of other nations ; for her populace being igno- 
 rant, her fields imcultivated, her streets crowd- 
 ed with paupers, her palaces with insolent ec- 
 clesiastics, and the finest region of the world 
 made the haunt of banditti and beggars. Let 
 us ask, why she has not a free government, and 
 equal laws, and an honest judicature, and a 
 thriving population ? Why are we forced now to 
 
66 PAPAL CEREMONIES. 
 
 write Romafmt, instead of being able to show, 
 in a reviving contrast, upon this field of her an- 
 cient glories, the better laurels which may grace 
 a country that has no plebeian race, and no do- 
 mestic slaves, and need not seek to subjugate 
 the world, and debase all other men to build 
 her monument? Why is it, that, now in the 
 nineteenth century, the city of Augustus does 
 not shew that the condition of human nature 
 is incomparably ameliorated, and that the bene- 
 volence of this age is more cheering than the 
 triumphs of the Caesars ; — that the moral inte- 
 rest which dwells in many a human breast for 
 all that is human, and which would instruct and 
 elevate each child, and each neighbour, is bet- 
 ter than the pride which called out, with the 
 feeling of insolent superiority, " I am a Roman 
 citizen ?" It is the Catholic religion which holds 
 this people in iron fetters, and makes them 
 slaves ; which keeps them ignorant, that they 
 may be subjects for priestly and political decep- 
 
PAPAL CEREMONIES. 67 
 
 tion ; which cannot keep them ignorant with- 
 out making them depraved and wicked ; which 
 cannot cleanse the heart without enlightening 
 the head; and which, therefore, while it de- 
 nounces severe punishment upon all who break 
 the least moral precept, still countenances crimes 
 and absolves the criminal, and at once keeps up 
 the old, and provides new channels for human 
 wickedness. 
 
 Religion is the main-spring of human society, 
 the element in which we live. In proportion as 
 this is pure, the whole surface of life is healthy 
 and its functions vigorous. Religion alone can 
 rise to the highest class, and restrain the low- 
 est ; guide the judge, and abash the criminal ; 
 stand by the altar, and dwell in the humblest 
 household. It alone can teach obedience to the 
 child, and wisdom to the parent ; allegiance to 
 the subject, and equity to the sovereign. But 
 where its universal influence is restrained, and 
 a few external observances are substituted in 
 
68 PAl'AI, CEREMONIES. 
 
 the place of an ever-present Spirit, the power 
 of conscience is deadened ; and in proportion 
 to what might have been the number and ex- 
 cellence of its genial influences, are now the in- 
 tensity and force of its overspreading desolations. 
 There are no such mighty effects brought about 
 on earth, as those which have a celestial origin ; 
 and no such hatefVil works as those which su- 
 perstition produces, and for which, when asked 
 for authority, it dares impiously to raise its 
 hand, and point to heaven. 
 
 On the Thursday of the Holy Week, there 
 is a representation in the Pauline Chapel of the 
 burial of our Lord. The spectacle is calcula- 
 ted very strongly to affect the imagination, the 
 chapel being illuminated from the spot which re- 
 presents the sepulchre. Coming out of the sun- 
 
1>APAL CKIIEMONIES. 69 
 
 sliine, and from all the beauties of external na- 
 ture into this Vatican palace, and beholding a 
 procession of the dignitaries of the chiu-ch, and 
 ambassadors, and grandees of many different 
 nations, entering into this gloomy but magni- 
 ficent chapel, whence the light common to other 
 men is carefully excluded, produces a feeling of 
 mysterious solemnity, like passing into an un- 
 earthly region. 
 
 It is certain, that all these sensible represen- 
 tations which arouse the minds of the most slug- 
 gish and profane to a perception and awe of 
 invisible realities, are of a most injurious ten- 
 dency ; since they lead such to suppose that 
 these indistinct perturbed emotions are in them- 
 selves of the essence of religion, and accep- 
 table to God. However wicked men may be 
 before they are called to be spectators of such a 
 scene ; in a tumult of earthly feeling, they fall 
 down and cross themselves, and rise up and go 
 away as wicked as ever ; confident that they can 
 
70 VAPAL CEREMONIES. 
 
 never become so hardened, as not again to be 
 affected by its recurrence, and counting the mo- 
 mentary emotion more valuable in the eye of 
 the spiritual Judge than habitual obedience. — 
 If men worship God as Protestants do, it re- 
 quires a continual watchfulness to keep the sen- 
 ses under, to fight against the world, and to in- 
 spect mainly the habits of the soul. But if the 
 glare and pomp of this life may be brought in 
 to help us to some earthly transports, at fixed 
 and distant intervals, and music from the thea- 
 tres be hired to affect the imaginations of sensual 
 men, we have then the adornments of a king- 
 dom which is of this world ; and they who pre- 
 side over it, are those who seek honour from 
 men, and are not likely to be greatest in the 
 kingdom of Heaven. 
 
 It is the sin of human nature to permit what 
 is animal and earthly — the material organs, to 
 subject what is intelligent and immortal — the 
 heaven- born spirit. However we may classify' 
 
I'APAL CEREMONIES. 71 
 
 the sins of men, and follow out their branches 
 as they spread eastward and westward, and dis- 
 criminate between the moral diseases which rage 
 within the tropics, and kill under the pole, we 
 may trace them all to this single root. It is 
 therefore, that men think little of harming their 
 souls, when they give pleasure to their bodies ; 
 they think little of injuring their moral princi- 
 ples, in comparison with taking a bodily infec- 
 tion : it is therefore, that they are so short- 
 sighted, as for years together not to look beyond 
 this land of shadows into a brighter world. In 
 proportion as age dims their vision, instead of 
 seeking for glory, honour, and eternal life, we 
 perceive them withdrawing their eyes from the 
 more distant objects of pursuit, and fixing them 
 upon those which are near at hand, until the or- 
 gans they have so much abused are taken away, 
 and they are laid in their graves, and " death 
 doth feed on them." 
 
72 PAPAL CEREMONIES. 
 
 It is not then, as too many who have the 
 name of Protestants, and who come to gaze at 
 the shows of Rome, imagine, a matter of indif- 
 ference how we worship ; for the manner often 
 proves whom we worship. It is possible to look 
 only at an ideal being, and thus adore a creature 
 instead of the Creator. God is known in pro- 
 portion as his attributes are discerned, and his 
 fear falls upon the heart. The Lord Jesus Christ 
 is served in proportion as the history of his sor- 
 rows is understood, the reason of them acqui- 
 esced in — his merciful interference in favour of 
 men gratefully acknowledged — the regenerating 
 and sanctifying influences of his spirit implored 
 — and his Heaven regarded as chiefly desirable, 
 because it is the celestial dwelUng-place where 
 his servants are made like unto Himself But 
 we may weep in agony beside a crucifix, in the 
 warmth of a sympathetic imagination, and there 
 be no more true devotion, or genuine piety, than 
 
PAPAL CEREMONIES. 73 
 
 ill what we experience when we read of the hor- 
 rors of the proscription by the Triumvirs. 
 
 In this liberal age, then, we must not sacri- 
 fice all that our judgment approves, and our 
 heart loves, upon the altar of indifference, nor 
 pretend that what is wrong elsewhere is right at 
 Rome. The CathoHc religion grew up by de- 
 grees into its monstrous errors ; but we need not 
 attempt to pare them down in the same gradual 
 manner : they must be cut off, and he does this 
 duty best who shews the least sympathy with the 
 delusion that destroys, and the most sympathy 
 for the erroneous that are ensnared. If we would 
 benefit ourselves and others in a search after 
 truth, we must guard against a half-way unde- 
 cided temper. If the Pope be not Peter's suc- 
 cessor, and the vicegerent of God, he is a proud 
 priest, and an usurping prelate, whose preten- 
 sions are not to be the more respected, because 
 they are backed by the ignorance of ten centu- 
 ries, and encouraged by a temporal domination 
 
 
 
74 I'APAL CEREMONIES. 
 
 which oppresses the population of the finest 
 parts of Italy, to support by rapacious exactions 
 hordes of indolent, or it may be, corrupt ec- 
 clesiastics. It is impossible to separate the tem- 
 poral sovereign from the spiritual head, and 
 especially since spiritual power is the tenure by 
 which he holds his temporal dominions. And 
 if we cannot recognize the humility which ought 
 to belong to him who uses the fisherman's seal, 
 and styles himself a servant of servants, in the 
 carriage and equipage of the sovereign of Rome, 
 who rules from Ostia to Ancona and Ravenna ; 
 neither can we believe that the man who holds 
 the keys of St Peter, and has power to admit 
 into the kingdom of Heaven, should condescend 
 to keep the keys of Bologna and Urbino. Since 
 he takes so much care of his earthly principali- 
 ties, we ought to shew on every suitable occa- 
 sion our disbelief in the extent of his celestial 
 domains, which many Protestants, who visit 
 Rome, do xox. 
 
PAPAL CERE]MONIES. 75 
 
 There are fine subjects for reflection conti- 
 nually suggested at Rome, from the contrast 
 between the former and present uses of the re- 
 mains of antiquity. Many of the ancient tem- 
 ples are converted into temples for this pomp- 
 ous religion, and thus the most incongruous re- 
 collections are often excited by the same object. 
 But the union is sometimes impressive in a sin- 
 gular degree. Such emotions arise from find- 
 ing the Coliseum consecrated and lined with al- 
 tars. When I hastened to examine this won- 
 der of Rome, amazement at its grandeur was 
 suddenly arrested, as I caught a first view of its 
 immense arches and mighty walls, by the sound 
 of the chaunting from a numerous procession. 
 I beheld a multitude following a crucifix, two 
 and two, enveloped from head to foot in a grey 
 
76 PAPAL CEREMONIES. 
 
 garment, with only holes cut in it for the eyes, 
 who, with ropes around their waists, and beads 
 in their hands, were just passing the great en- 
 trance, and falhng upon their knees to re-echo 
 their Latin prayers. This procession of peni- 
 tents was so unlike what our historical recollec- 
 tions have associated with the Amphitheatre of 
 Vespasian, that before I could give up my whole 
 mind to admiration of this grandest of all the 
 relics of antiquity, I was forced for a moment to 
 consider what a different appearance this arena 
 exhibited now, from what was seen when Chris- 
 tians were turned out of their prisons to be mur- 
 dered here by wild beasts, for the amusement of 
 the Roman people. 
 
 Benedict XIV. had the place consecrated. 
 But the recollections of the earliest martyrs are 
 among the best of the richly varied meditations, 
 which spring up in the stillness of a moonlight 
 walk through the arches of this monument of 
 the magnificence of Imperial Rome. 
 
SAN PAOLO 
 ALLE TRE FONTANE. 
 
 Protestants, in their anxiety to shun the 
 earth-born spells raised in the ignorance of the 
 dark ages, have yielded far too much to Romish 
 superstition, and thereby lost sight of a large 
 field of useful reflection. Because our senses 
 are very apt to subject the soul to a base domi- 
 nation, it does by no means follow that our senses 
 are not at all to be consulted in religious exer- 
 cises. The Lord, who now dwells amidst the 
 spirits of the just made perfect, once contended 
 against the evils of humanity ; and perhaps it 
 is a device to avoid a matter-of-fact conflict with 
 the powers of sin on earth, that we sometimes 
 turn our view to the heavenly state, to indulge 
 indefinable imaginations. 
 
78 SAN PAOLO. 
 
 It brings our fancy as well as ovir reason into 
 contact with some of the most glorious realities 
 of our faith, to consider the Apostle Paul, a 
 man of hke passions with ourselves, meeting a 
 population not very unhke that which now in- 
 habits the Bay of Baiae and the Roman terri- 
 tory, and proclaiming, as he went forward to 
 Caesar's judgment-seat, that the altars which 
 were raised were to unknown Gods. 
 
 When the temple of Jupiter Capitolinus stood 
 in all its splendour ; when the power of the great, 
 the prejudices of the ignorant, and the inte- 
 rests of the priests, formed a threefold alliance 
 in favour of idolatry, a single man, bound in 
 chains, alone hfted up his voice in this region, 
 filled with immortal beings, against the worst of 
 all slavery. The minister of true religion ap- 
 peared in a garb which did not unfitly represent 
 the outward show of his crucified Lord ; while 
 the ministers of sin, and panders for lust, and 
 provokers to crime, stood bedecked in all that 
 
ALLE THE FONTANK. 79 
 
 is most flattering to human pride, arrayed in the 
 richest robes, and their ceremonies set forth with 
 the accumulated wealth of ages. 
 
 Nor was the outward vision alone addressed : 
 the infamous Venus had her Anacreon, the Ju- 
 piter dyed with a thousand crimes had found 
 poets, from Homer downwards, to sing the prai- 
 ses of the Father of the Gods ; and Paul landed 
 within three miles of the school of Virgil and 
 his tomb, to uncover the most finished of human 
 fables, and shew them to be blasphemous and 
 vile imaginations. 
 
 Who then that sees how little reason weighs 
 against passion, how little arguments drawn 
 from a future world arrest the present flow of 
 crime, how repulsive the Christian"'s theory and 
 practice are to the spirit of a world that lieth in 
 wickedness, can believe that any thing short of 
 divine power could give victory to him who 
 fought apparently at such fearful odds ; or make 
 this single champion for truth, the leader of a 
 
80 SAN PAOLO. 
 
 corps, who in a few years after trampled upon 
 the altar of Jupiter, and upon Caesar's throne ? 
 It brings us into the midst of the realities, and 
 makes us almost converse with the men and wo- 
 men of ancient times, and enables us to measure 
 the height and breadth of the obstacles to^be 
 overleaped, and to know all the obtrusive diffi- 
 culties which hung upon his course, more hea- 
 vily than the chains on his feet, when we visit 
 the Campagna of Rome, now relapsed into su- 
 perstition. We come off from the ground of a 
 remote and undefined antiquity, and enter upon 
 the terra jirma where the battle was truly held ; 
 and our very senses give proof that victory came 
 *' not by might nor by power, but by the spirit 
 of the Lord." 
 
 We are not to suppose that the Christians of 
 the first and second centuries would sacrifice all 
 their local recollections ; nor should we, because 
 they have been abused, permit them to fade 
 from ovu' minds. It is worth while to separate 
 
ALLE TRE FONTANE. 81 
 
 from the fables, which have peopled Italy with 
 legends, and lay up for serious contemplation, 
 as much truth as may be mixed with the stories 
 of the saints. Among other things, we can 
 scarcely doubt that the spot upon which St Paul 
 was martyred, was long held in remembrance ; 
 and we may visit the little chapel at " the three 
 fountains," beyond the Basilica of San Paoh 
 Jiwri delle mure, with a reasonable conviction 
 that we stand where the Apostle of the Gen- 
 tiles was beheaded. 
 
 We know that it was according to the Roman 
 law to execute Romans beyond the walls of the 
 city, beside the highways ; and the neighbour- 
 ing church of St Paul was built first by Constan- 
 tine, rebuilt by Theodosius, and finished by 
 Honorius. 
 
 While then, because it is doubtful whether St 
 Peter was ever at Rome, we may leave the Ja- 
 niculum, where the site of his martyrdom is fix- 
 ed, to the antiquaries who dispute against it, 
 
82 SAK PAOLO 
 
 and the Papists who build their church upon 
 him, we may trust to the just veneration of an 
 earlier and purer antiquity for marking out the 
 spot where Saul of Tarsus consummated his 
 course, as a Prince among the Apostles of Jesus 
 of Nazareth. 
 
 The sohtude of the Campagna di Roma 
 agrees well with a traveller's reflections. It is 
 well to stand aloof from the busy tribes of men, 
 when we stand beside the tomb of Paul the 
 Apostle. Our spirit may catch some enthusiasm 
 in the uninterrupted stillness of nature, but 
 there could be little sympathy for one who had 
 studied St Paul's Epistles, in the devotees of 
 papal Rome. 
 
 Upon this spot, all the circumstances of his 
 death rush thick upon our sight ; — the band of 
 Roman soldiers leading out their captive ; — the 
 few lingering friends at a distance, fearful of 
 exhibiting the sympathy which would have be- 
 trayed that they felt themselves indebted for 
 
ALLE THE FONTANE. 83 
 
 more than life to tins Jew of Tarsus ; — and it 
 may be, while converted friends timidly " fol- 
 lowed afar off," the mob came nigh to behold 
 and scoff at the man, who " turned the world 
 upside down,"" and to assist in guarding him, 
 who, when he was reviled, reviled not again. 
 
 'i'he Centurion and the soldiers would be 
 more affected with this single deliberate execu- 
 tion, than with the thousand murders they had 
 committed in the Parthian wars. 
 
 But the Apostle would heed little the sym- 
 pathy or hatred of men, in comparison with the 
 sympathy and encouragement of his Lord in 
 heaven. He would not have time even for 
 earthly partings, nor, as a man, to turn his eye 
 once to the home far away, and fields where he 
 had roamed in his childhood, or to his relatives 
 in his native city ; for he would be solely anxious 
 to declare the gospel of eternal life to those who 
 scoffed at, and those who murdered him. What 
 a scene for angels to look upon ! when this 
 
84 SAN PAOLO 
 
 man, learned, eloquent, regenerate, and sancti- 
 fied, filled with the best gifts which spring from 
 earth or descend from heaven, bent his neck, 
 and as the executioner's sword descended in the 
 last blow which human wrath could ever inflict, 
 would only utter, " Lay not this sin to their 
 charge,— Lord Jesus, receive my spirit !" 
 
 What a proof was here that the Lord Jesus 
 had indeed appeared to him, as he was on his 
 way to Damascus, and changed his violent ene- 
 my into his faithful servant, and given him a 
 dauntless spirit, which the opposition of men, 
 and the scourgings of tyrants, and the prolonged 
 anguish of years, and death itself could not 
 quell ! As the earth is stained with his blood, his 
 spirit soars upward to the skies ; and his con- 
 scious nature enters into communion with my- 
 riads of conscious beings ; and completely puri- 
 fied, he takes the place which he shall never 
 lose, at the right hand of his Lord, and wears 
 for ever the crown of eternal glory. 
 
ALLE TRE FONTANE. 85 
 
 How unlike is this departure from troubled 
 life, to that of the greatest man of all antiquity, 
 who fell a martyr for his country's freedom, 
 near Mola di Gaeta, which is not many leagues 
 distant ! Cicero, with the most penetrating ge- 
 nius, the most admirable erudition, the most 
 commanding eloquence, united with stores of in- 
 tense feeling, — collected all the opinions of the 
 schools about our immortality, and added pro- 
 found conjectures of his own,, to what human 
 ingenuity had before devised ; and the best in- 
 ference he drew from all his toil was, that a fu- 
 ture and happy state was rather a thing to be 
 desired than a fact to be known ; and that the 
 wisest man's only refuge was as mvich stoical 
 apathy as could consist with philosophical sen- 
 timent, and some encouraging aspirations,* 
 
 * " Nam nunc quiclem quid tandem illi mali mors 
 attulit ? nisi forte ineptiis ac fabulis ducimur, ut exis- 
 tiraemus ilium apud inferos impiorum supplicia per- 
 
86 SAN PAOT,f> 
 
 And when an infamous faction proscribed 
 that friend of the Roman republic and glory of 
 his age, because he was the enemy of CatiUne, 
 he died, — as they, who know nothing of revela- 
 tion, must always die — with the agonizing re- 
 flection, that his glories were to be buried in one 
 eternal night, and his very being perhaps in- 
 gulphed in everlasting sleep, vmless indeed there 
 were dreams of pain and torture in that region 
 where the worm riots. Whether we are only phi- 
 losophers who judge upon the facts, or Chris- 
 tians who receive the testimony of God, it is 
 clear as the cloudless sun, that though in the 
 last hour there be an exhibition of the courage 
 of Portia, or the fortitude of Regulus, or the 
 cool spirit of suicide of Brutus, yet are they all 
 but as the varying hues of the dying dolphin — 
 
 ferre, — Quae si falsa sunt ; id quod omnes intelligunt, 
 quid ei tandem aliud mors eripuit, prajter sensura do- 
 loris ? 
 
 Cicero, O ratio pro A. Cluentio, p. Gl. 
 
ALLE TUE FONT AXE. 87 
 
 outside ornaments, perishing glories that fade 
 under your contemplation, and leave behind but 
 the desolated and corrupting remains. 
 
 We will turn our eyes then from them all to 
 him, who found death great gain, and knew be- 
 fore hand that it was so ; and who ended his 
 course with joy upon a spot, whither the Pro- 
 testant pilgrim may bend his way, wearied with 
 the superstitious fopperies of the city they style 
 Eternal, and find on this solitary plain aliment 
 for his heavenly hope. As the MaParia has 
 made this region a desert, so has a moral pesti- 
 lence taken place of a healthier atmosphere with- 
 in the walls of the capital where Paul once 
 preached. When we sit upon the porch of this 
 chapel, and observe no happy dwelling, nor 
 curhng smoke, nor sportive child, and scarcely 
 a wandering animal ; we may almost suppose 
 that, for once, visible judgments stand out as 
 evidences of human guilt, and that God has 
 withdrawn the sweet charities of this life, from 
 
88 SAN PAOLO, kkc. 
 
 those who have substituted their own idolatries, 
 in the stead of the authoritative mandates which 
 he himself delivered, and which this Apostle 
 sealed with his own blood. 
 
 We leave the dispute about the physical 
 causes of this wonderful phenomenon to the 
 adepts in science, whose inquiries, however, have 
 hitherto been fruitless ; but we should not lose 
 the reflections which such desolation, and such 
 moral accompaniments, ought to excite. 
 
89 ] 
 
 CATARACT AT TERNI. 
 
 There is a rare union of beauty and grandeur 
 in the Falls of Terni. Though the quantity of 
 water be much less than the Rhine discharges 
 at Schaffhausen, yet the scene is much more 
 imposing, from the greater height of the preci- 
 pice. Niagara alone more completely absorbs 
 the imagination. The American cataract has 
 an overwhelming majesty that belongs to its 
 flood of waters, and which at first stupifies the 
 faculties of every observer ; but Terni has an 
 attractive grandeur, which induces you to ad- 
 vance deliberately to examine a wonder which 
 nature and art have united to produce. 
 
90 THE CATARACT AT TERNI. 
 
 The rapids in the American river, before you 
 reach the edge of the precipice, combined with 
 the distant roar of the falls, form a more sub- 
 lime spectacle than the full view of Schaffhau- 
 sen, while the prospect from the Table Rock is 
 like a glance into eternity. We are obliged to 
 call up the force of our minds to keep us from 
 recoiling with dread. But at the Cascata del 
 Marmore, as this Italian waterfall is styled, the 
 eye rests upon the scene with a pleasing asto- 
 nishment, in which there is more of delight than 
 terror. 
 
 It is situated at a few miles distance from 
 Terni. The country is beautifully romantic. 
 The road lies for the most part through fields 
 of olive trees. At Papinia, you are obliged to 
 leave the carriage ; and after descending and 
 crossing the Nera, and traversing a garden, and 
 beautiful line of orange trees, you approach the 
 celebrated fall. AVhen I saw it, the melting 
 of the snow, and the late rains, had swollen tlie 
 
THE CATARACT AT TKUNI. 91 
 
 river to nearly double its ordinary size. This 
 outlet for the Lake Velinus has been most hap- 
 pily chosen ; for there are few situations where 
 an artificial cataract could be more than beauti- 
 ful, but this is exquisite. An ancient castle 
 crowns the summit of the lofty mountain near 
 you ; and nvunberless rills run down near the main 
 sheet of water. But one of the most beautiful 
 objects is occasioned by the quantity of foam, 
 produced by the fall, which ascends in clouds, 
 and, being collected by a projecting ridge, runs 
 down in innumerable little cascades ; and as you 
 cannot at first divine the cause, the rock seems 
 bursting with the waters it holds in its bosom. 
 Besides its other attributes, this fall has the 
 best of all charms — association. It is in Italy, it 
 is a work of the Romans, — these foaming wa- 
 ters wash the walls of the Eternal City ! 
 
 When the admirer of Nature's wonders visits 
 Niagara, he travels through distant forests, just 
 
92 THE CATAEACT AT TERNI. 
 
 beginning to be the residence of civilized men; 
 and he reflects upon the generations of aborigi- 
 nal inhabitants that vanished from these woods 
 during many centuries, as the foam of the cata- 
 ract has risen daily to fall again, and to be swept 
 away. But they have passed, and have left no 
 memorial : the traveller is forced inward for to- 
 pics of meditation ; the scene wants drapery ; it 
 is too much like the summit of Chimborazo, of 
 unequalled loftiness, but freezing cold. 
 
 On the contrary, the Fall of Velino has been 
 approached in a course from the Vale of Cji- 
 tumnus towards the banks of the Tiber ; the 
 ruin of Augustus"' Bridge at Narni is to be the 
 picture of to-morrow; Agrippa's Pantheon is 
 soon to be seen. We have not the feeling of 
 sadness that we are at the end of an enjoyment 
 when we have beheld this wonder, a sentiment 
 which forces itself upon the traveller who stands 
 between Erie and Ontario. Such causes give a. 
 
THE CATAItACT AT TEllNI. 9'> 
 
 richness and mellowness to the scene, which can- 
 not operate upon the transatlantic cataract. 
 
 Yet, with all this, if we could select but one 
 of the two wonders to be seen, it would not be 
 easy to decide between their respective claims. 
 Men of the sterner mould would choose the ob- 
 ject of vmmingled sublimity, and those of milder 
 sentiment, that which is the perfection of gran- 
 deur and beauty. It is not unlike a comparison 
 between Homer and Virgil. 
 
 The Italian fall of waters is indeed 
 
 A matchless cataract. 
 
 Horribly beautiful ! But on the verge. 
 
 From side to side, beneath the glittering morn 
 An Iris sits, amidst the infernal surge. 
 
 Like Hope upon a death-bed, and unworn 
 Its steady dyes, while all around is torn 
 
 By the distracted waters, — bears serene 
 Its briUiant hues with aU their beams unshorn ; 
 
 Resembhng, 'mid the torture of the scene. 
 Love watching Madness, with unalterable mien." 
 
 Childe Harold, Canto IV. Stanza LXXII. 
 
94 THE CATi\RACT AT TERN I. 
 
 The impression which is produced by the 
 sight of a great waterfall is unique ; unlike any 
 of our other feelings, it makes the most giddy 
 thoughtful, and offers many points of compari- 
 son with human life. The land-marks are per- 
 manent as the fields we live in ; the waters 
 fleeting as our breath; the plunge that they 
 make into unknown depths like our descent in- 
 to the grave ; the rainbow which sits upon the 
 abyss like our hope of immortality. There is 
 the dread of danger, and the curiosity of hope, 
 and the impression of the irresistible impetus 
 by which we are borne forward, to make us feel 
 that we too are gliding onward, though some- 
 times as unconcious as the bubble, to the gulf 
 of eternity, into which the troubled waters of 
 life discharge themselves. An immortal and 
 immutable condition awaits us, though we sport 
 with what seem to be the contingencies of ex- 
 istence. How often are we reckless of the star 
 that might guide, and the chart that should 
 
THE CATAllACT AT TERNI. 95 
 
 direct us, in our voyage, while we are floating 
 onward and onward, with accelerated velocity, 
 to the last leap of life. It is the highest crime 
 a man can commit against reason and revela- 
 tion, if he venture to make that leap in the 
 dark. 
 
[ 96 J 
 
 CARRARA AND CHIAVARI. 
 
 The inhabitants of the principahty of Lucca 
 are among the most intelhgent of the Italians, 
 and their territory is the best cultivated. The 
 route to Genoa overland possesses great interest; 
 nowhere is the traveller better recompensed for 
 the fatigue which must be endured on a road 
 impassable for carriages, but which is sufficient- 
 ly well supplied with post horses. 
 
 The country, after leaving Lucca, becomes 
 more beautiful and picturesque, when we begin 
 to wind through the hills and by the banks of 
 the rapid streams, as we advance towards the 
 Appenines. 
 
 The first place of great curiosity that we saw 
 was Carrara, which is embosomed in the moun- 
 
CAURARA A"\'D CHIAVARI. 97 
 
 tains. Numerous labourers in statuary marble 
 reside here for the convenience of choosing their 
 blocks from the neighbouring quarries. The 
 marble is of the purest white, and the quarries 
 apparently inexhaustible, for they have been 
 worked since the time of the Romans. 
 
 That a large portion of the population of any 
 country should gain their subsistence by the arts 
 of statuary and painting, proves certainly a very 
 polished state of society ; but is far less condu- 
 cive to its moral interests than employments, 
 which excite less our natural sensibilities. The 
 imagination is at all times a dangerous enemy 
 to sober principle ; and in proportion as the pic- 
 tures which fill it, and which it combines and 
 multiplies with infinite address and rapidity, 
 are touching and refined, a colouring and en- 
 chantment are given to those passions, which at 
 best have a dubious alhance with virtue. Ab- 
 stractedly speaking, the imitation of the beau- 
 
98 CARKAIIA AND CHIAVAllI. 
 
 ty of the human figure is a most suitable ex- 
 ercise of talent ; but he must be little acqviainted 
 with the operation of the most powerful incen- 
 tives to irregular emotions, who does not know 
 that it needs not the picturing of the beau ideal, 
 to enable sense to vanquish conscience. It may 
 seem Gothic to ascribe the prevalent immorali- 
 ties of the Italians to their taste in the fine arts ; 
 but as every thing good has been perverted, 
 painting and sculpture, as well as poetry, have 
 not escaped the general infection. Cause and 
 effect operate reciprocally ; artists choose models 
 in which vicious examples are exhibited, be- 
 cause they are themselves vicious ; and the spec- 
 tators, who might at first have been chiefly at- 
 tracted by the exhibition of talent, now advance 
 to a sympathy with \dce itself. 
 
 But it is impossible to enter the galleries of 
 any palace, rich in the works of genius, without 
 perceiving that artists now infringe upon the 
 
CARRARA AND CHI AVAR I. 99 
 
 first laws of nature, and offend against the best 
 feelings of delicacy. In our age, the customs 
 could not have been originated which now pre- 
 vail among them ; according to which, those de- 
 scriptions are lawful and proper in the painter 
 and sculptor, which would condemn the poet to 
 the company of the shameless and vulgar. The 
 copying the fashion set in the Apollo Belvidere 
 and the Venus de Medicis, is counted a suffi- 
 cient warrant for such transgressions of decency 
 as our religion must ever abhor, however it 
 suited the paganism of Rome and Athens. 
 
 It were better to walk backward with the pall 
 upon our shoulders to conceal the disgraceful 
 image, than to look at what is daily exhibited 
 in the Academy of Fine Arts at Florence to 
 some fifty striplings drawing from the life. That 
 which is wrong in essence must be wrong in re- 
 presentation ; and the very plea, that the fre- 
 quency of beholding naked statues, and pic- 
 tures without drapery, prevents all immoral im- 
 
100 CAIIRARA AND CHIAVARJ. 
 
 pression, proves, that without this frequency, 
 the evil effect exists ; and we may doubt whether 
 that which is evil in the beginning, can be good 
 in the end. 
 
 I believe that this viniversal license of artists 
 could not have been taken, had it not commenced 
 in a stage of society widely distant from ours ; 
 when the female sex had no influence upon its 
 habits ; when religion was sensuality deified ; 
 when lust was enshrined, and infamous passion 
 personified and worshipped ; when Phidias se- 
 lected his models, and afterwards adored his own 
 workmanship. The excellence which he attain- 
 ed in his unholy study should not carry us in 
 our imitation beyond the line of decency ; nor 
 does it justify what we continually see in the 
 studii of artists on either side of the Alps. 
 
 That this is a subject of grave interest, can- 
 not be denied by any one who has been in Italy, 
 where the passages in the houses, and the walks 
 in the gardens, are ornamented with statues 
 
CAllRAUA A^CJD CHIAVAIU. 101 
 
 and scenes representing the most infamous parts 
 of the heathen mythology. The appeals to the 
 imagination are far more numerous than would 
 be supposed by one acquainted only with our 
 habits, and must produce a decided effect upon 
 the populace. It is true, that we soon lose the 
 sliock which they give ; but we have also lost 
 some delicacy in the trial, and have become less 
 haters of evil, as we are less sensitive v/hen in 
 its neighbourhood. 
 
 Englishmen, and I suppose Englishwomen 
 too, as well as Americans of both sexes, for the 
 most part soon learn to consider their liome 
 feelings upon this subject the fruit of squeam- 
 ish delicacy, or of ignorance of the fine arts ; 
 but they ought rather to see that they have their 
 source in the habits of their native country, 
 which are utterly uncongenial with the vices of 
 France and Italy. It is paying too dear for a 
 taste in the fine arts, to gain it at the expense of 
 participating in Italian cfTcniinacy or French 
 
102 LAllllAUA AND CHIAVAllI. 
 
 corruption. If there be not strength in the bo- 
 dy when there is a glow in the cheek, consump- 
 tion is gnawing at the vitals. It is not enough 
 that society be polished, it must be virtuous. 
 We would infinitely rather see the forest trees 
 fill up the walks around Philadelphia and New 
 York, than have them disgraced by statues 
 from the Villa Borghese, or such as might be 
 selected from the gardens of the Thuilleries. 
 
 Beyond Carrara, Spezia is the next most re- 
 markable place, situated upon its beautiful gulf. 
 Many travellers, who pass by water along this 
 coast, penetrate into it ; but they lose some of 
 the grandest scenery m the world, if they do not 
 quit their vessels, and ascend the mountains be- 
 hind the town. 
 
 From hence quite to Sestri, the Appenines 
 extend into the sea with rugged precipices, so 
 that, instead of beholding the ocean from a 
 sandy beach, you stand upon the brink of tlie 
 mountain, and look off upon the waste of waters 
 
CAKRARA AND CHIAVAKl. 103 
 
 which flow up ahnost to the point perpendicu- 
 larly below your feet. At the distance of every 
 few leagues, as the mountains run off in spurs, 
 you have deep ravines to cross, where the roads 
 are so narrow and steep, that the mule makes 
 his way with caution and difficulty. Here olive 
 trees cover the sides with their ever-green foli- 
 age. Some of the summits are so high and bar- 
 ren as to be destitute of cultivation ; but whe- 
 ther on the sides or summits, you are still on the 
 brink of the sea, and have a boundless prospect 
 over the Mediterranean, and of the innumerable 
 vessels which coast along these shores. 
 
 I observed some beautiful varieties of scene 
 from these eminences, when in some cases the 
 clouds fell below the line of vision between me 
 and some distant ship, which seemed suspended 
 upon them. In other instances, only the upper 
 surface of these fleecy, floating fields was richly 
 illuminated by the afternoon sun ; when the 
 inferior surface, that was visible to the observer 
 
104 CARllARA AND CHIAVAIU. 
 
 who Stood in the valley, or floated on the wave, 
 would appear dark and lowering. 
 
 The precipitous ravines, upon the sides of 
 which were clustered, for hundreds of feet, sharp 
 rocks, precluding all possibility of descent to 
 certain points, afforded some nooks of earth, 
 which looked like retirements that defied the 
 approach of intruders. Yet here were small ha- 
 bitations, whose solitary owners need care little 
 for the revolutions of empires, or the victories of 
 kings. 
 
 The troubles incident to humanity sit close 
 upon the bodies in which we live, and cannot be 
 thrown off. But we provide for ourselves, and 
 our neighbours provide for us numberless anxie- 
 ties, which are as worthless in their causes as 
 they are effective in their consequences ; and 
 which he may escape v*^ho draws in his connec- 
 tions to a narrow sphere. Such scenes of quiet 
 life strike the traveller with pecuhar interest, 
 who is wandering over the world, making ac- 
 
CAUllARA AND CIIIAVAUI. 105 
 
 quaintances which he cannot stay to value, or 
 friendships which must soon be dissolved.—- 
 Perhaps the experience and wisdom that we 
 gain on the journey do not repay us for the loss 
 of home-feelings. The minute beauties of a 
 landscape are lost in an extensive prospect ; 
 and the more boundless is our view, the lof- 
 tier, and colder, and more solitary is our emi- 
 nence. He who wanders long loses the sweet 
 charities of life, and must return a stranger to 
 the scenes of his infancy. Our enjoyments are 
 to be measured, not by their intrinsic value, but 
 according to the estimation in which they are 
 held by their possessor ; and if Csesar would 
 have been happier as first man in a village than 
 second at Rome, not the sphere, but the dispo- 
 sitions of mind, are exclusively to be regarded 
 in our views of human happiness. • Our feehngs 
 may be much increased, both in intensity and 
 force, by exercise ; but yet there is a sensible 
 limit, beyond which, if they spread, they become 
 
106 (JARRAKA AND CHIAVAIII. 
 
 like a river, overflowing its natural boundaries, 
 widely diffused, but neither quick nor deep. 
 
 The village politician is as important and 
 as full of interest to himself as the imperial 
 statesman, and feels as much honoured by his 
 power of regulating ten men, as the latter by 
 his power over ten millions. Thus are human 
 affairs balanced ; one has opulence and disease, 
 another poverty and health; one beholds the 
 enchantments of Italy, and comes home to be 
 a stranger ; another dwells amid the charities 
 of domestic life, and pines to behold the scenes 
 of classical story. We all indulge a portion of 
 discontent at our own lot, and of envy at that 
 of others ; being generally most affected with 
 what is evil in our condition, and most obser- 
 vant of what is fairest in that of our neighbour. 
 We obtain a lesson of practical wisdom, when 
 we look at both sides of the scale upon which 
 earthly happiness is graduated; for no small 
 part of our misery is self caused, entirely arising 
 
CARRAllA AND CHIAVAKI. 107 
 
 from unreasonable comparisons. Those who 
 live in mediocrity of fortune, in a little fishing 
 village in the Gulf of Spezia, may be more hap- 
 py than they who inhabit the palaces of Genoa. 
 We had, upon this journey, one of the most 
 beautiful sunsets I ever enjoyed. We descended 
 from the higher regions into a beautiful narrow 
 vale, through which the road lay to the sea- 
 side, where we came upon the Bay of Sestri. 
 Here is a noble promontory to the south ; a pen- 
 insula, the extreme point of which is finely co- 
 vered with wood, and a smooth curved beach, 
 with a noble back-ground of mountains. The 
 scene was enlivened by the great number of lit- 
 tle boats, with the fishermen just landing, on 
 their return to their families, after the toils of 
 the day. We had been travelling so long over 
 the solitary mountains, that it was pleasant to 
 come again to the haunts of men ; and especially 
 to such a spot, less grand, but more perfect in 
 simple natural beauty, than the Bay of Naples. 
 
108 CARRAUA AND CHIAVARI. 
 
 At Chiavari, we closed our labours witli such 
 refreshment as a good inn furnished. 
 
 The next day we had a noble prospect of 
 " the magnificent'''' Genoa from the summit of 
 Recco. 
 
[ 109 1 
 
 CARTHUSIAN MONASTERY, 
 
 NEAR PAVIA. 
 
 April in the North of Italy is quite the spring 
 of the poets ; in such perfect beauty does nature 
 develope herself. To transalpine eyes, it look- 
 ed strange to see the new-mown grass prepared 
 to be gathered in on the twelfth of that month. 
 It was at this season that I ranged over the 
 plains of Lombardy, in my course from Genoa 
 to Venice. The half animal, and half intellec- 
 tual enjoyment, arising from pure air and splen- 
 did skies, gave a new zest to the foreign scene, 
 and made me look upon men and things with 
 the complacency of a mind harmonized by these 
 genial influences. 
 
110 THE CAKTITUSIAN MONASTERY 
 
 Of all the works of man which adorn this fine 
 region, no one struck me so much as the Car- 
 thusian Monastery near Pavia. This splendid 
 monument of the superstition of a princely age, 
 stands now to represent by its solitude that the 
 feeling which raised it has vanished, and to ex- 
 hibit by its grandeur what was once the power 
 of an arm now withered. 
 
 It was founded by John Galeazzo Visconti, 
 Duke of Milan, in consequence of a vow of his 
 wife Catharine, on occasion of his investiture 
 with the right to the Dutchy by the Emperor 
 Winceslaus. The foundation stone was laid with 
 great pomp in 1396; and for more than 200 
 years the first architects and sculptors of Italy 
 were excited by great rewards to the most grand 
 and exquisite labours of genius. The revenues 
 of the Dutchy were liberally expended, the rich- 
 est materials provided, marble brought from 
 Carrara for the more heavy parts of the build- 
 ing ; and for the decoration of the interior, espe- 
 
NEAR PAVIA. Ill 
 
 cially of the altars of the fourteen chapels, an 
 immense number of precious stones and curious 
 gems were placed in the hands of the artists. 
 
 The imitation which the roof exhibits of a 
 pure Italian midnight sky, where the stars seem 
 to penetrate through the blue expanse, when 
 obrserved by the light which shoots darkly from 
 the Gothic arches, produces the finest eftect ima- 
 ginable. The ceiling of St Peter's altogether 
 is so splendid as to be gaudy ; St Paul's is 
 smoky and comfortless ; York Minster is grand 
 without being beautiful ; but this is lofty, and 
 pure, and solemn, like the surface of heaven. 
 
 As the object of this sort of architecture is to 
 excite feehng, in no place are the advantages of 
 the Gothic style of building so remarkably con- 
 spicuous. I do not speak, in particular, of the 
 exquisite finish of the several parts, nor of the 
 subjects which this beautiful temple contains, 
 which on minute investigation exhibit all the 
 graces of sculpture and painting ; but of the 
 
lis THK CARTHFSIA-M MONASTERY 
 
 whole effect, which is unequalled. When you 
 enter the Santa Maria Maggiore at Rome, its 
 vista of columns, and general splendour, and 
 the richness of the gilding of the roof, excite an 
 enthusiastic admiration of the work itself. — 
 When you enter the Cathedral of Pavia, you 
 think chiefly of the ceremonies for which hu- 
 man devotion has consecrated so rich a shrine. 
 There is little piety in that sort of devotional 
 feeling which is produced by such a cause ; 
 though it does bring a sacred awe over the spi- 
 rit. 
 
 All the buildings reared upon the plan of the 
 Roman Basilica, lose in sacredness what they 
 gain in grace and convenience. If the Ita- 
 lian Pontiff will raise his throne, and sit under 
 the brazen pillars of the baldaquin in Peter"'s 
 chair, and have the four great doctors of the 
 church to support his seat, let him for full effect 
 sit under Gothic arches ; the Pantheon does not 
 suit well as a dome for his temple : he must be 
 
NEAR PAVIA. 113 
 
 approached in mystic light ; the colouring from 
 stained windows, and shadows thrown by a set- 
 ting sun upon his kneeling devotees, agree best 
 of all with his imposing ceremonial. 
 
 St Mark's at Venice is unique ; but its gene- 
 ral effect is diminished by its being broken into 
 parts. Perhaps, too, as it is a copy of Santa 
 Sophia, the association of ideas is too close 
 with the history of the termination of the By- 
 zantine empire ; and it is not our fault, but their 
 own, if the men of those days, who were neither 
 Greeks nor Romans, do not attract our sympa- 
 thy. The Christianity of the Eastern church 
 has little in common with that of Gothic Eu- 
 rope, but its darkness ; for its hermits are as 
 forbidding as Simon Styhtes, while they are as 
 ignorant as the Father of the Crusades. 
 
 There is an obvious danger of pushing those 
 feelings too far, which arise out of our recollec- 
 tions of the twelfth century ; but they should 
 
114 THE CARTHUSIAN MONASTERY 
 
 be SO much encouraged as to make us estimate 
 justly our superior advantages. 
 
 When we enter a Gothic Cathedral, remem- 
 bering that God who is every where present, 
 and reflect that in this place he was once wor- 
 shipped by generations that are dead, with the 
 sentiment that elsewhere an acceptable offering 
 could not be made, — that here a proud priest- 
 hood exercised their usurped rights, and dis- 
 played their deadly superstitions ; and if, fur- 
 ther, we know that in this very place multi- 
 tudes at this hour come regularly to bow before 
 St Veronica's napkin, or the blood of St Janua- 
 rius, our hearts must indeed thrill with gi-ati- 
 tude that we are delivered from a burden of 
 idle and noxious ceremonies, which weighed 
 down our fathers. If we have any of the true 
 sentiment of reUgion, we shall with renewed de- 
 light value the Scriptures, which give us liberty 
 without licentiousness, and look up for that 
 
NEAR PAVIA. 115 
 
 which is better than priestly unction, the Spirit 
 from on high. 
 
 There is nothing in the study of the history 
 of the superstition whicli has depraved Christi- 
 anity, to foster harshness or rage. Men as good 
 as ourselves have been led into these follies, and 
 we are restrained by a higher agency than our 
 
 How much easier is it to bind the body than 
 the soul ! Here men of rank, and men of blood, 
 who had gone through the pomp and turmoil of 
 life, came to end their days in tranquillity. The 
 small apartments, and sohtary garden of a Car- 
 thusian monk, and all the severely repulsive re- 
 strictions of the order, did not prevent even the 
 sovereigns of Lombardy from laying aside their 
 ducal sceptre. What a contrast was this soli- 
 
116 THE cahthusian monastery. 
 
 tude ! They dined publicly in the refectory only 
 once a week, and conversed together on that 
 Thursday only, for a short period. The rest of 
 their time was spent in their oratories, or in the 
 church, or study, or garden ; which last is the 
 only appendage to their separate dwellings which 
 bears even the semblance of luxury. Such sa- 
 crifices, made, as they thought, to obtain Hea- 
 ven, slioidd affect the consciences of those, who, 
 better instructed, count inferior exertions too 
 arduous. 
 
 The Emperor, Joseph II., finally suppressed 
 this monastery in 1782, and sequestrated its im- 
 mense revenues. The magnificent building it- 
 self is threatened with ruin, since the lead has 
 been taken from the roof It is to be hoped that 
 it will be an object of care to the government 
 of the Lombard- Venetian kingdom, as Austria 
 styles her rich province in Italy. 
 
[ 117 
 
 MILAN. 
 
 Milan is very well built ; the streets in the 
 outskirts, and near the canal, are wide and ele- 
 gant. The first object that strikes the eye, and 
 the great ornament of the city, is the Cathedral, 
 il Duomo. It is said to be the largest church 
 in the world, except St Peter''s and St Paul's ; 
 and is superior even to the first in one point, 
 that it is built entirely of marble. The interior 
 seemed to me very gloomy, though it is not in 
 the heavy style of the Gothic architecture. The 
 painted windows intercept too much of the light; 
 and from its antiquity, the walls are so blacken- 
 ed, that instead of the grave aspect suitable to 
 the place, it has a cavern-like appearance. The 
 exterior is very beautiful, erring perhaps in the 
 extreme of the most florid Gothic style. 
 
118 MILAN. 
 
 The numerous figures with which it is orna- 
 mented, (and there are said to be more than four 
 thousand statues in the several niches,) prevent 
 the effect which the exposure of such an im- 
 mense mass of building, if unbroken, would pro- 
 duce. 
 
 From the spire, the prospect is most exten- 
 sive over the plain of Lombardy, and only 
 bounded on the north by the Rhaetian Alps. 
 The building itself from this point exhibits a 
 splendid result of human labour. All the pin- 
 nacles of each arCh are worked to the very top 
 with perfect exactness, and crowned at their 
 summits with marble statues. Not only the 
 large niches are filled, but from the finish of the 
 smaller figures as you ascend, you are astonish- 
 ed at each step with the minuteness as weU as 
 grandeur of the labour. 
 
 A gilded statue of the Virgin crowns the sum- 
 mit of the spire ; and from this height you look 
 upon the work of nearly five centuries, as upon 
 
MILAN. 119 
 
 a fiekl of marble. The reflection of the sun's 
 rays from it is quite overpowering. 
 
 Upon a descent again into the church, we 
 find that this cathedral is not behind other con- 
 secrated buildings, in this land of legends and 
 reliques, in its sacred treasures ; one most es- 
 teemed possession being a nail from the cross, 
 which is suspended near the roof behind the al- 
 tar, and is taken down yearly, and carried in 
 procession around the city, followed by the 
 Archbishop, his retinue of clergy, and the po- 
 pulace. 
 
 Here is also preserved, at one of the altars, 
 the crucifix which St Charles bore in procession 
 at the time of the pestilence. I found numerous 
 devotees kneeling before it at their prayers. 
 
 But the tomb of this St Charles Borromeo is 
 one of the greatest wonders of the Catholic 
 church. The descent into it is just in front of 
 the great altar under the dome. It is very 
 splendidly hung with gold cloth ; the most me- 
 
120 MILAN. 
 
 morable actions of his life are carved in silver ; 
 and the bodv itself is preserved in a case of rock- 
 crystal, magnificently attired, and set off with 
 precious stones. The contrast is shocking be- 
 tween the richness of the vestments, and the 
 corruption of the body — the face being expo- 
 sed, decayed and black. It is the most that man 
 can do for his idol, to decorate the senseless 
 remains. I never before had so vividly pre- 
 sented to my view the vanity of wealth, here so 
 profusely scattered in this worthless honouring 
 of bones ; — the vanity of the best earthly ho- 
 nours, from which we must soon fly away ; — 
 the vanity of the most splendid of earthly abodes, 
 which cannot be richer than this sepulchral 
 chapelj and must soon, at latest, hold only our 
 lifeless organs ; — in short, the vanity of the men 
 that once lived, and of the men that live now ; 
 — vanity of vanities, — all is Vanity ! 
 
 I felt it a degradation of the nature in which 
 I have a share, that in this case the law of rea- 
 
MILAN. 121 
 
 son, and customs of the world, have been in- 
 fringed upon by this exposure of decaying mem- 
 bers. Charles Borromeo was a man endowed with 
 singular benevolence and ardour of spirit, who 
 lived to do good to his fellow men, and who was 
 anxious to honour his God ; however erroneous 
 he was in the manner of his adoration. He 
 deserved to be canonized, not for the purpose of 
 idolatrous veneration, but of encouraging exam- 
 ple. But his bones certainly should not be drag- 
 ged from the earth, the common receptacle of 
 men, to render proof to our very eyes, that no- 
 ble birth, and charitable labours, and neglect of 
 this world's honours, and aspirations towards 
 Heaven, could not save his body from becoming 
 a loathsome corpse. But worse than this is it 
 to consider, that the exhibition is made as an 
 enticement to idolatry, and to induce immortal 
 beings to imagine, that a pilgrimage to visit 
 such relics shall avail them in their pursuit of 
 eternal felicity. 
 
[ 122 ] 
 
 LAKE OF COMO. 
 
 The road from Milan to Como presents little 
 beside a rich cultivated plain. The rugged tops 
 of the mountains, as we advance, give notice of 
 our approach to the lake. A square tower on 
 the most lofty, which overlooks Como, is a very 
 fine object. The beautiful bay, at the western 
 extremity of the lake, upon which the town is 
 situated, is about a mile across, and nearly cir- 
 cular. Vines reach almost to the summits of the 
 steep hills which surround it, and many coun- 
 try seats decorate the prospect. All the Italian 
 villas look very beautiful at a distance, however 
 much a close examination di linishes the spec- 
 tator's interest. Even the villages, which are 
 odiously ugly when you enter them, perched as 
 they are upon eminences, and exhibiting white 
 
LAKE OF COMO. 123 
 
 walls, and spires, and towers, give great beauty 
 to a landscape. Thus the view from Tivoli to- 
 wards the Monticelli is quite enchanting to the 
 eye, wearied with the barrenness of the Cam- 
 pagna di Roma. 
 
 Around the Lake of Como, the mountains 
 are themselves the banks, so that there is no car- 
 riage road, and the fine villas can only be ap- 
 proached by water. The variety and grandeur 
 here arise from the vicinity of the water to these 
 immense bodies of rock. The peculiarity of 
 these mountains, and indeed of the Alpine ridges 
 everywhere, is, that they stand as if scalloped 
 out in irregular masses, with deep ravines, which 
 give most beautiful relief, and variety of light 
 and shade. 
 
 At the turn where the lake widens and length- 
 ens to the eye, rocks, which are quite precipi- 
 tous, are covered with green shrubbery. There 
 are also beautiful islands ; and upon one, a 
 crowded population in the Villagio dei Piscatori. 
 
124 LAKE OF COMO. 
 
 It is the most interesting of all the Italian lakes. 
 Even the Borromaean Isles in the Lago Mag- 
 giore, (which much excels the Lago di Garda,) 
 do not make it rival Como. 
 
 I set out from the town upon an excursion on 
 the lake as far as Pliniana, a famous intermit- 
 ting fountain described by the younger Pliny. 
 It was the first object which I visited in Italy 
 that abounded in classical associations ; and I 
 took an hour most congenial with my feelings 
 for visiting this retirement of the amiable an- 
 cient philosopher. It is situated upon a narrow 
 ledge of rocks, which protrude from the moun- 
 tam that overhangs the garden ; the villa itself 
 is not easily to be approached but by water. A 
 large country residence, like most of those on 
 the continent, quite comfortless and deserted, 
 and falling into ruins, occupies the small por- 
 tion of plain which the shore here affords. When 
 we landed, it was toward evening ; and the 
 stillness of the scene corresponded well with the 
 
LAKE OF COMO. 125 
 
 lengthening shadows of the mountains, and the 
 falhng leaves, which a November wind was scat- 
 tering, to excite a stranger to learn a moral from 
 visiting the sanctuaries of genius ; since this is 
 a dehght which could not be had, if the origi- 
 nal inhabitants had not departed. We lament 
 the passing nature of earthly hopes ; but many 
 of the best reflections, and richest trains of feel- 
 ing, arise from the absence of those whose loss 
 we deplore. 
 
 The loneliness here was affecting. How lit- 
 tle can the most reviving beauties of nature 
 compensate for the want of human sympathy ! 
 Men escape from such solitude as this to the 
 bustling crowds of Milan, and waste the reflec- 
 tive faculty in discussing the artificial excite- 
 ments which keep up their fever of life. 
 
 It is only in England and in Switzerland that 
 we can find the genuine taste for the beauties of 
 nature, and God's own works. Among all the 
 people of Europe, it is only among the English 
 
126 LAKE OF COMO. 
 
 and Swiss that we see country life in perfection. 
 If such a site as this had been found in the 
 island of Great Britain, — a site consecrated by 
 some of the best recollections, the abode of 
 one of the most famous morahsts of antiquity, 
 and described by his own eloquent pen, — it 
 would have been made a little paradise by every 
 earthly art ; and would be dwelt in as a perma- 
 nent residence, instead of being visited to con- 
 sume the tsedium of an hour. But the Italians 
 live more in the admiration they seek to excite, 
 than in their own peculiar feehngs, and are not 
 easily happy, unless some one be present to de- 
 clare that they are so. Indeed, this vice of hving 
 for our neighbours, is not exclusively the folly 
 of Italy. 
 
LAKE OF COMO. 127 
 
 The manner in which the recollections of our 
 childhood come before our imagination, appears 
 to be the principal charm in visiting the places 
 which are consecrated by classical antiquity. — 
 Our youthful labours and sports, the short pains 
 and exhilarating pleasures of a period when fan- 
 cy gilded all the future with the colouring of 
 hope, and there appeared not one tinge of soi'- 
 row beyond the holiday, are revived with a 
 saddening sweetness, when we visit later in life 
 what our imagination has pictured in our 
 thoughtless days. Who that has followed the 
 march of the ten thousand over the mountains 
 of Asia, and seen described in the page of 
 Xenophon their ecstacy when they exclaimed, 
 " the sea," has not. felt corresponding emotions 
 with the Grecian heroes, and dreamed how he 
 would have delighted in their toils and glories ? 
 
 We come to the place of Pliny's retirement 
 as we would visit the Portico at Athens, to 
 give a local habitation, and all the identifying 
 
128 LAKE OF COMO. 
 
 charm of reality, to the floating visions which 
 his description has excited. And we are not 
 disappointed upon this occasion. The philoso- 
 pher's fondness for his native region has not ex- 
 aggerated its beauties ; and the traveller from a 
 country which has none but recent historical re- 
 collections, and little except unadorned natural 
 beauty, is amply repaid for his pilgrimage in be- 
 holding the richness of this scene, which has be- 
 fore been pictured to his imagination by a mas- 
 ter's hand. 
 
 There are many particulars here which go to 
 the filling up and perfecting this picturesque 
 landscape. A torrent from behind dashes down 
 the mountain, suggesting emotions peculiarly 
 connected with the sound of falhng water. 
 
 From the Palace I had a magnificent pros- 
 pect further up the lake where it expands ; and 
 as it was evening, the sun threw his dying glo- 
 ries on the sky, in the manner in which they 
 are to be beheld only in Italy. With a feeling 
 
LAKK OF COMO. 1^9 
 
 of regret I bade the place adieu, and embarked 
 to return (eight miles) to the town of Como. — 
 Just as the darkness of the night set in, the full 
 moon rose in all its splendour ; and as its rays 
 tinged the mountain summits, the bells for ves- 
 pers rung from every quarter ; the horns sound- 
 ed to call in the vessels, and give notice of the 
 shutting of the little ports ; the lake, from 
 having been wrapt in nature's stillness, seemed 
 for a moment enlivened with all the bustle of 
 human life. But the sounds speedily passed away, 
 and I had nothing but the dashing of the oars 
 to interrupt my contemplation of the grandeur 
 of the scene. The mountains cast their images 
 in variety of colouring upon the broad bosom of 
 the pure lake ; while the moon illuminated all 
 the spires and walls of convents and churches 
 erected upon the eminences, and at that moment 
 filled with the voice of evening supplication. 
 
 It was impossible not to wish that the sup- 
 pliants had been better instructed how to offer 
 
130 LAKE OF COMO. 
 
 their prayers ; and also that those who have the 
 means of purer knowledge were as prompt and 
 unwearied in the expression of their feehngs. I 
 never heard the note of vespers rung with so 
 much effect as at this time. It was an unusual 
 sound at any rate. In the United States we 
 have not adopted even the curfew, or the pass- 
 ing bell. 
 
 Once indeed on a Saturday evening, not far 
 from the banks of the river Connecticut, I heard 
 in my walk the distant village bells giving the 
 signal for the close of labour, and the promise 
 of the day of rest. But I know of no other spot 
 where they preserve even this relic of the world 
 as it appeared to our fathers. 
 
 We have no doubt lost much in the associa- 
 tion of kind and sacred feelings, by the neglect 
 of these little reiterated appeals to the heart, 
 which might, like the memory of the Ranz des 
 Vaches to the Swiss soldier, be sweet for those 
 to think upon who are forced to wander from 
 
LAKE OF COMO. 131 
 
 the banks of the Hudson to the Missouri — sweet 
 for all who would tenderly cherish the charities 
 of home. When the wild world would cheat 
 them of peace on earth and in heaven, such 
 may, by the association of a curfew with parental 
 watchfulness, parental counsel, and parental 
 prayers, have early lessons, and early resolu- 
 tions recalled in the hour of danger. Blessed 
 powers of memory and association ! — by you 
 manhood employs his strength, — to you age 
 owes his experience, — and by your minute and 
 imperceptible influences are our best emotions 
 guided, and drowsy conscience aroused to do his 
 office ! 
 
 We need not fear that the people will ever 
 again believe that the sound of a consecrated bell 
 will drive away hateful Demons from a dying 
 bed. Indeed, when I have seen the multitude at 
 Rome, of every rank, uncover their heads in the 
 street, as the bell for prayers rung at noonday, 
 I have sometimes thought it desirable that Pro- 
 
132 LAKE OF COMO. 
 
 testants should have some such audible remem- 
 brancer of the duty of prayer and adoration. 
 
 But the chillness and lonehness of the night 
 brought on a new train of reflection about the va- 
 nity of a stranger's pleasures, and the hazards 
 of a stranger''s wanderings. As I wrapt myself 
 more closely in my cloak, having wearied my- 
 self in imagining the satisfaction which a narra- 
 tive might one day give in that circle where I 
 should not be a stranger ; I left my feelings to 
 expatiate upon the simple delights of home, and 
 natural affection, in comparison with which all 
 other delights are but as scenes painted on the 
 eye-ball, which do not reach the heart. There 
 are few ties like those of consanguinity ; the best 
 of our sympathies flow in that channel ; and 
 when we wander farthest away, it is that we may 
 better enjoy the repose of home. 
 
 Before I arrived at the town, I had turned 
 my view from the beautiful lake, and magnifi- 
 
LAKE OF COMO. 133 
 
 cent mountains, and rich fields, and villas, ex- 
 hibited in this mellow moonlight scene, to the 
 enlivening anticipations of a safe return to coun- 
 try and friends, beyond the ocean. 
 
134 ] 
 
 SAN MARINO. 
 
 San Marino is distant thirteen miles from 
 Rimini, a continual ascent ; for freedom has for- 
 saken the plains of Italy, and found only one 
 asylum upon a summit of the Appenines. The 
 fertile fields are subjected to Austrian tyranny ; 
 and a scanty return from the cultivation of vines 
 and wheat is all that can be had in these higher 
 regions. 
 
 This little republic is contained within thirty 
 Itahan mUes of circumference, and has a popu- 
 lation of about five thousand souls. Its go- 
 vernment is vested in a council of seven hun- 
 dred, who are hereditary, and are convened three 
 or four times a year. For ordinary exigencies, 
 there is a higher council, composed of forty 
 members, also hereditary, who have the supreme 
 
SAN MABINO. 185 
 
 authority, and who may sentence to banishment 
 or death. 
 
 This hereditary oligarchical system is like- 
 wise found in the most free republics of Switzer- 
 land, and agrees better with the state of igno- 
 rance in which the lowest class of society still is 
 in Europe, than with our theoretical notions of 
 political equality. 
 
 From the Council of Forty, two persons are 
 selected as Chief Councillors; the principal one, 
 II Capitano, is President, to convene as well as 
 preside. These two are changed every five 
 months : a very necessary precaution, however 
 injurious such a rotation might be in any criti- 
 cal emergency. 
 
 Bonaparte respected the rights of this little 
 republic, while he was invading the ancient li- 
 mits of the most powerful kingdoms. When 
 his general officers visited it, having observed 
 that the river Macera is the natural boundary 
 of their territory, he offered to add to the state 
 
136 SAN MARINO. 
 
 what lies between, namely, the town of Vecche- 
 ro, and the neighbouring fortress of St Leo. — 
 This the Council wisely refused, answering that 
 if it pleased his Majesty, they wished for no- 
 thing more than to preserve their liberty ; that 
 their littleness was their security ; that it was 
 better for them to remain as they had been for so 
 many centuries ; since if they became considera- 
 ble, they would soon be the objects of envy, ha- 
 tred, and war, to their neighbours. Napoleon 
 continued his protection, and gave them the 
 right to receive their salt, wheat, tobacco, and 
 other necessaries, free of duty. 
 
 AU these privileges have been withdrawn by 
 the present Pope, and he has even reclaimed 
 those which his predecessors had granted. In 
 1818, after prosecuting this business at Rome, 
 the ambassador Signore Onofrio thought he 
 had succeeded, and was dismissed with the as- 
 surance that the necessary edict should be is- 
 sued from Ravenna. But many months had 
 
SAN MARINO. 137 
 
 passed, and his Infallibility had not yet fulfilled 
 his promise. 
 
 Their territory is completely surrounded by 
 the Pope's ; so that if he be pleased to exact 
 heavy transit duties for the foreign articles which 
 they need, he may at any time reduce them to 
 the greatest distress. 
 
 The city is divided by situation into an up- 
 per and lower town. The solitary mountain 
 upon which it is located rises quite to a point, 
 which is occupied by an ancient castle, now used 
 as a prison. There was one person in confine- 
 ment for a week at the time of my visit, for a 
 theft of thirty sous. In its immediate vicinity 
 is the edifice for public business ; the Cathedral, 
 dedicated Patrono Libertatis ; the Collegio Ba- 
 luzzi, founded by a citizen of this name, with 
 the houses of the principal persons of the state, 
 and two convents and churches of Capuchin and 
 minor friars. 
 
 In the lower town, which is immediately at 
 
138 SAN MARINO. 
 
 the foot of the precipice, upon "which is the Cas- 
 tle, and some hundred feet below it, live the arti- 
 zans and shop-keepers. 
 
 In the little that a stranger could perceive of 
 character in a passing visit, physiognomy woidd 
 naturally be called in for aid, and fancy help 
 out the lack of better means of investigation. 
 By such assistance it was not difficult to dis- 
 cover an independence of action and feeling in 
 these mountaineers, which would have befitted 
 the ancient Romans. The people are poor, ha- 
 ving no advantages of agriculture beyond what 
 are necessary for their sustenance, and no com- 
 merce. It is with extreme difficulty that any 
 thing more than a beast of burden can reach the 
 dwellings where they are perched. And as h- 
 berty cannot subsist with an idle populace, the 
 inhabitants of San iVlarino have full employ- 
 ment in seeking to supply the pressing wants of 
 nature. The absence of a more bountiful pro- 
 vision for these necessities is well compensated 
 
SAN MARINO. 1S9 
 
 by the rich resources of a free Bpirit ; and their 
 fire-side musings are invaluable, when compared 
 with the scenes in the theatres of Venice and 
 Florence. Even those of the lowest orders with 
 whom I conversed, were far more intelligent than 
 people of the same class at Rimini and Ancona. 
 Such is the force of uncultivated intellect when 
 frequently called into exercise. In a small state 
 where all its concerns touch each individual, 
 there is an impulse given to mind that would 
 have remained dormant in other circumstances : 
 the same man who is a passive functionary of 
 police at Bologna, might be an active and intel- 
 ligent citizen at San Marino. 
 
 But the government of this republic is as un- 
 like that of our free American states, as the cha- 
 racter of their people is different from ours. The 
 general knowlc(^ge in the western communities, 
 their enlightened moral principles, the habit of 
 obedience to law only, and their acquaintance 
 with constitutional authority, fit them for an ad- 
 
140 SAN MARINO. 
 
 ministration which would not agree with an ig- 
 norant or catholic population. Such an admi- 
 nistration would speedily either raise them above 
 an influence which harmonizes only with despot- 
 ism, or would itself be vanquished by it. A 
 slavish submission to human dictation, in refer- 
 ence to our opinions about a fiiture world, pre- 
 pares us for a like implicit reliance in the affairs 
 of this life, upon those who are set above us, 
 less by merit than by birth or wealth. 
 
 The citizen who informed me that there were 
 thirty priests in this repubhc, exclaimed, " mol- 
 to troppo;"" and they are indeed " far too many,'"' 
 imless they had better occupation than to recite 
 Latin prayers to the Queen of Heaven, — as this 
 religion styles the Virgin — whom it would con- 
 vert into a female Saviour. 
 
 But we must not forget that frequently these 
 priests are the instructors of youth, as well as 
 the ministers of religion ; and it would be well 
 if every state, upon the same population, sup- 
 
SAN MARINO. 141 
 
 ported as many for these two purposes, and 
 sought to make them intelligent and zealous in 
 dispelling ignorance, and eradicating wicked- 
 ness. 
 
 In the Protestant cantons of Switzerland, so 
 far as I could make an estimate upon this point, 
 which is well worth minute investigation, and 
 is a part of statistics in which political econo- 
 mists usually feel less interest than in the rela- 
 tive produce of wheat and potatoe cultivation, 
 there is commonly one minister of religion to 
 each thousand ; but his duties are then almost 
 exclusively spiritual. 
 
 In those parts of the United States which 
 border upon the Atlantic Ocean, running up 
 from the Chesapeake Bay to the north-eastern 
 boundary of the Union, if we include all acknow- 
 ledged to be invested with a sacred character by 
 the different sects of Christians, the least respec- 
 table of whom it would be too degrading to com- 
 pare with the best of the wandering Itahan 
 
142 SAN MARINO. 
 
 friars, — there must be about one pastor for each 
 two thousand inhabitants. And these for the 
 most part bear with them a wholesome moral at- 
 mosphere, and strong moral influences, although 
 they have in different degrees the treasure of 
 heavenly knowledge, and with a greater or less 
 admixture of human error. 
 
 Beyond all others, it is this sort of influence 
 which is pervading and all-powerfiil. The mass 
 of every nation must be occupied in mechanical 
 and agricultural employments ; their time for 
 study is limited in the best instructed commu- 
 nity ; their disposition necessarily restrained by 
 want of leisure and bodily fatigue ; what is 
 taught in the school and conversed about at 
 home, is for children grown up, rather than for 
 the instruction of men. 
 
 It is only, then, such popular assemblages as 
 are commanded by our religion, and sanctioned 
 by our habits, which can be the efficient organs' 
 
SAN MARINO. 143 
 
 of conveying general knowledge ; and thus, in 
 the very act of being prepared for another con- 
 dition of existence, the whole tone of our present 
 character is changed. The man who is accus- 
 tomed to hear a detail of the evidences of divine 
 revelation, a development of the seeds of evil 
 which lurk in the human breast, a history of the 
 means of relief which the Lord of Life has pro- 
 vided ; and who listens to these truths, no long- 
 ger abstract, but enforced upon his conscience 
 by all the appeals of a practical eloquence, which 
 exposes the terrors of future punishment, and 
 the hopes of endless blessedness, comes within 
 a sphere of influence which elevates his under- 
 standing, and enlarges his heart. 
 
 He is a better citizen in proportion as he be- 
 comes a Christian, not merely because he is 
 more submissive to law upon the injunction of 
 conscience ; but also, because he is enhghtened 
 enough to see the human expediency of this 
 same submission. He is no longer a passive in- 
 
144 SAN MARINO. 
 
 strument in the hands of a demagogue, nor dri- 
 ven at random by the blind impulse of his own 
 passions ; but because he is instructed to con- 
 sider the constitutions of Heaven, and excited to 
 this study by the dread of eternal penalties ; so 
 he is by this habit enabled to study the consti- 
 tution of his country, to listen with deference 
 to the wisdom that organized it, and to yield a 
 rational obedience to its wholesome restrictions. 
 If it were not for the religious principle which 
 has its hold upon the consciences of the majo- 
 rity of the inhabitants of the United States, we 
 might expect to find that feeling which must 
 ever exist — and ever have some channel by 
 which to pass off — setting in motion mobs and 
 orators, as full of tumult and anarchy as an 
 Athenian assembly. But the social principle 
 finds full room for operation in the exercises of 
 social rehgion; and how different a spectacle 
 does that portion of the New World exhibit from 
 what deformed the face of Pagan Greece ! 
 
SAN MARINO. 145 
 
 No doubt, it were much better to have fewer 
 sects and more Christianity; fewer ignorant 
 ministers of religion, and more zealous hearers ; 
 but as all evils are comparative, so there are some 
 diseases which betoken general health. That 
 country would not be overrun with itinerant lec- 
 turers on astronomy, where the populace never 
 studied the stars ; and if the citizens of the Ame- 
 rican republic were not anxious for Christian 
 knowledge, there would not be so many teach- 
 ers good and bad. 
 
 Public oral instruction was divinely institu- 
 ted by Him who knew best the genius of his own 
 religion. And certainly the most effectual of aU 
 inventions for breaking down the spirit of Chris- 
 tianity, and degrading those to whom it is sent, 
 is to interdict in the people all exercise of the un- 
 derstanding ; and this is done so completely by 
 the proud and exclusive Church of Rome, that 
 the very prayers of its deluded votaries are of- 
 fered up in an unknown tongue. There is rarely 
 
 K 
 
146 SAN MAUI NO. 
 
 a popular discourse addressed to a religious as- 
 sembly, except during the season of Lent. Thus 
 all the wide field which religion affords for hu- 
 man investigation^ which alone has attraction 
 enough in its sublime and fearful prospects to 
 rouse the sluggish multitude, is almost as much 
 concealed from their perception, and without 
 practical effect upon their lives, as the fields and 
 odours of Arabia Felix are from the wandering 
 and frozen Laplander. 
 
 The peculiar excellence of Christianity, ari- 
 sing out of its universal influence in evolving 
 intellect, and exciting dormant powers, and pre- 
 paring the minds which have once been exerci- 
 sed about its truth, for all the lower studies of 
 practical usefulness, deserves a volume, and is 
 worthy of Milton's pen ; and the conformity of 
 its unadulterated institutions to its mighty spi- 
 rit, affords abundant scope for eloquent illustra- 
 
SAN MARINO. 147 
 
 But to turn from the features of moral inte- 
 rest, which are various and prominent at San 
 Marino, to its natural situation. The prospect 
 from its rocky summit is one of the most exten- 
 sive and varied. The mountains form a mag- 
 nificent back-ground, the ridge of the Appenines 
 being very much broken ; and below, in the 
 eastern direction, the richer plains are exposed 
 and set off' in fine conti'ast with the fruitful hills 
 and barren precipices. The view embraces the 
 coast of the Adriatic from the vicinity of Ra- 
 venna to Pesaro, the mountains of Urbino, the 
 neighbouring Appenines, and the fortress of St 
 Leo. The line of the river in its white bed 
 produces a fine effect in the scene. 
 
 There was a cheering variety in the steep de- 
 scent from this intei-estinsc eminence, which I 
 
148 SAN MARINO. 
 
 was the better prepared to enjoy, from having 
 just quitted the monotonous plains of Lombar- 
 dy. As the ravines opened to view, and the 
 road was winding round the hills, the song from 
 the fields at a little distance, struck my ear 
 quite in unison with my feelings. The toils of 
 agriculture promote the wholesome flow of spi- 
 rits, and the joys of life ; and they may well 
 sing, who, removed from the despotism which 
 reigns below, occupy a small territory diligently 
 cultivated. May it never become a prey to the 
 rapacity of allied sovereigns ! It is enough that 
 the King of Sardinia has Genoa ; and the Em- 
 peror of Austria, Venice ; and a Princess of 
 Spain, Lucca; and, — worthy compeer ! — AU Pa- 
 cha, Parga, without the European continent 
 losing this reUck of ancient freedom, held in- 
 violate even by Napoleon, though only from ca- 
 price, and not generosity. It alone was permit- 
 ted to pretend to independence, when the Czar 
 of Russia trembled at the look of the despot of 
 
SAN MAKINO. 14^ 
 
 France. May it remain, as an altar of remem- 
 brance — a beacon-light, a lofty monument, upon 
 which to set up and unfurl the standard of li- 
 berty, when the whole of Italy shall dare to be 
 free. 
 
 Having returned fatigued to Rimini, as I was 
 sitting, in the evening, musing in my sohtary 
 apartment, I heard a female voice — the voice of 
 a mother in the next room, instructing her child 
 in its prayers. The circumstance was very sim- 
 ple ; but I was affected by it, and especially to 
 perceive that the prayers were in Latin. I was 
 anxious to indulge as much charity as truth will 
 permit, or perhaps a little more, in estimating 
 the feelings of devotion, possibly consistent with 
 such unintelligent petitions. 
 
 How moving is always this proof of maternal 
 solicitude ! How little piety is there in the world, 
 
150 SAN MARINO. 
 
 the seeds of which have not been gently sown 
 by a mother's hand, and watered with her tears ! 
 How wise is that law of our nature, which con- 
 fides our infancy to the sex, which is the purest, 
 the most disinterested, the most religious ! No 
 sympathy and interest can exist like that which 
 binds a mother to her offspring ; and no impres- 
 sions are so deep, so difficult to be eradicated, as 
 those which we have received from a mother''s 
 hps. Mungo Park, when he wandered in the 
 deserts of Africa, was first pitied by female sa- 
 vages ; and there he might have observed more 
 tenderness of conscience, more of the tendencies 
 to religious exercises, than in the sterner and 
 more perverse sex. 
 
 We hail it, then, as the great proof of meho- 
 ration in society, and the pledge of rapid im- 
 provement, that mothers are becoming daily bet- 
 ter fitted for the education of their children. It 
 is female instruction which is the true standard 
 of a nation's civilization, and which alone spreads 
 
SAN MARINO. 151 
 
 virtue and elegance over the whole of life, and 
 carries into its recesses balm and odour, more 
 precious than the Phoenix could have gathered 
 in a century through the groves of Arabia, to 
 build the nest in which she was soon to die. 
 
[ 152 ] 
 
 PESCHIERA. 
 
 The recollections connected with Virgil, and 
 the age of Augustus, gave way at once, when I 
 came to the river Mincio from the sight of no 
 unusual spectacle ; one which belongs to a train 
 of reflection very different from that commonly 
 excited by the Roman poet. As we entered the 
 town of Peschiera, built at the point where the 
 Mincio flows from the Lago di Garda, to wash 
 the walls of Mantua, in the midst of a heavy 
 shower of rain, we met a corps of soldiers bear- 
 ing the body of an officer who had been drown- 
 ed in the lake. His fellow officers, dressed in 
 full uniform, and drenched in rain, marched 
 with melancholy step, in time to slow music; 
 and their look was like the occasion — a mirror 
 
I'ESCHIERA. 153 
 
 to reflect how little it needs to spoil the pomp 
 of men. The gay plumage, which had so often 
 fluttered on their heads, in the parade and car- 
 nage of war, now waved heavily, as they advan- 
 ced towards the spot, which is the end of the 
 journey and cares of life. 
 
 I heard the spectators inquire what was the 
 age of this unfortunate young Austrian, what 
 his rank, and the circumstances of his fate, and 
 "had he a wife or children.?" — Ah ! yes, thought 
 I, had he a wife or children to weep for him 'i 
 — No ; but he had a mother, who was soon to 
 hear, that, instead of being about to return to 
 her, with his brow decorated with the wreath of 
 laurel, he had been enwrapped in the bulrushes 
 of the INIincio, and that he would return no 
 more ; that that portion of her life, which had 
 wandered away in another body, was now extinct ; 
 and that his bones rest in a foreign land, who 
 had left the place of his fathers' sepulchre. 
 
 Such is this vision of existence : its best con- 
 
154 PKSCHIERA. 
 
 nections are disparted as easily as the fitful as- 
 sociations which fancy links in sleep. It takes 
 but one moment to separate us from all the 
 world, — "for our life," says Pindar, "is like the 
 dream of a shadow," — and to raise an impassable 
 barrier against the flow of earthly sympathy. — 
 This young man, full of the scenes of present 
 enjoyment, had them all dissipated in an in- 
 stant ; and all the fires of passion quenched in 
 these fatal waters. 
 
 " By the sadness of the countenance the 
 heart is made better :'"' the view of such a case 
 of individual misery brings us to a sounder 
 judgment of the relative value of the things of 
 life. Of how little worth are all our reflections 
 associated with Virgil, or — as it is to be feared 
 that many who visit the Lago di Garda and pro- 
 montory of Sermione, have most sympathy with 
 the infamous Catullus, — of how httle worth are 
 all those feelings which are excited by the ma- ' 
 gic of Roman poetry, in comparison with one 
 
PESCHIEKA. 155 
 
 sober retlection, one permanent conviction, that 
 we may obtain, by believing the gospel of our 
 Lord Jesus Christ, foot-hold, and place, and 
 home, and joys, in the land which is invisible 
 to the eye of flesh, and inhabited only by sha- 
 dows, to the perception of natural fancy ; but 
 which the light of revelation shews us to be 
 overflowing with delights to those who do not 
 " deny the faith," and inhabited by the myri- 
 ads who have had the seal of eternity set upon 
 them by their righteous Creator. 
 
[ 156 J 
 
 VENICE. 
 
 The scene from the main land, across the La- 
 gune towards Venice, reminded me of a distant 
 prospect of New York, from the opposite bank 
 of the Hudson. It was at a late hour that I 
 finished my voyage from Padua, and reached 
 the mouth of the Brenta. Just as the evening 
 twilight was enshrouding its domes and spires 
 in mistiness, I approached this ancient Queen 
 of the Sea, whose power has waned and died, as 
 of very dignity. 
 
 I had often, upon the water in my own coimtry, 
 in the damp summer evening, experienced the 
 same physical sensations, and moral musings, 
 which were now produced by the gliding of the' 
 boat through the smooth surface, when the de- 
 
VENICK. 157 
 
 dining light above mingled imperceptibly in the 
 dusky horizon with the dark waters. The hour, 
 and sensations, and reflections, never agreed bet- 
 ter with the distant scene. All the minute parts 
 of Venice were veiled in a cloud of mist, like 
 that which covers the secret history of her for- 
 mer glory. It was left to the imagination to 
 conceive how a noon-tide sun would exhibit the 
 magnificent spectacle of a city rising out of the 
 ocean, adorned with churches and palaces, and 
 rich with the splendid remains of the arts. 
 
 But should the light of truth, in like man- 
 ner, unveil all the secret history of its Doges, 
 all the enormities of aristocratical insolence, all 
 the intolerance of senatorial pride, Venice, — 
 human nature, would gain little by the exposure. 
 For then, however we might reprobate the part 
 which Austria and the other high allied powers 
 of Europe have had in destroying such free- 
 dom as its former government allowed, perhaps 
 we shovdd be constrained to acknowledge that 
 
158 VENICE. 
 
 the penalties of such crimes and profligacy, as 
 have rendered this city for ages a loathsome and 
 infectious depository of malignant moral poison, 
 have justly called down the infliction she now 
 endures ; and considering Venice as one great 
 moral being, she ought righteously to be left to 
 moulder in all her members in the face of the 
 sun, to shew what is the end of a nation with- 
 out religion, and a populace without virtue. 
 
 It is hard to fix a sentence of reprobation upon 
 tens of thousands of immortal agents, endowed 
 with reason for a guide ; — no doubt there are 
 exceptions to all sweeping denunciations. Tra- 
 jan was among the later Roman emperors, and 
 Socrates among the Greek philosophers. But 
 it is clear, that when Venice styled herself free, 
 the mass of her population was loosened from 
 all the restraints of moral principle ; and as to 
 her politics, she counted it her privilege to gain 
 by force what could not be had by right, and 
 to sack the Greek isles, and govern Padua. 
 
VENICE. 159 
 
 Still we would not at once divest ourselves of 
 reverence for old age, even if it be wicked. — ■ 
 Grey hairs, though they cover a head which has 
 reached the extremity of crime, may so far pro- 
 tect it from our scorn, as to make compassion 
 predominant. We tremble, but cannot exult, 
 when we see the infirmities and palsy which hang 
 upon tottering senility ; with awe at that irre- 
 versible adjudication which is near, we deliver 
 up such a cause into the hands of the Judge of 
 the Universe. 
 
 It were well if the politicians of our own time 
 took the providence of the Governor among the 
 nations for an element in their calculations, and 
 believed that His justice is signally exhibited 
 in the fate of Venice. The Holy AUiance, — 
 the members of this high court of inspection 
 over the rights of kings and privileges of peo- 
 ple, — this sacred confederacy of five men who 
 watch over the interests of fifty millions of sub- 
 jects ; and as if this were not enough, summon 
 
160 VENICE. 
 
 other princes to answer at their tribunal, how 
 they dare grant constitutional liberty to an op- 
 pressed nation, might perceive that the law 
 which condemns Venice, and for the infraction 
 of which she is now suffermg, condemns Aus- 
 tria and Russia. 
 
 We cannot doubt that the work of penalty 
 will go round ; and that the period is not dis- 
 tant, when these despotic governments must be 
 modified, or must decay. 
 
 They have assumed a mighty responsibility 
 who now tyrannize over Venice. This decrepit 
 state did not deserve its present fate upon any 
 other than moral principles : upon political 
 grounds, it has been a disgrace to Europe to 
 blot out this republic from the list of independ- 
 ent powers. Since it has been consigned to Aus- 
 tria, the Teutonic empire in Italy seems reso- 
 lute in keeping watch over it, lest any one should 
 attempt to re-animate its ashes. Every thing 
 which might act as a moral corrective and regene- 
 
VENICE. 161 
 
 rating principle is studiously guarded against 
 as a supreme evil : all circulation of knowledge 
 is interdicted, and free discussion put down per 
 force. It was with great difficulty that upon 
 crossing the Ticino, and entering the Lombard- 
 Venetian kingdom, I could save my few travel- 
 ling books from being seized and sent to Milan 
 for censorship. Ignorance, which is the mo- 
 ther of Romish devotion, and slavish obedience, 
 forms the chain upon which Austria depends to 
 link the people with its " paternal'''' government. 
 How great is the guilt of such an odious domi- 
 nation, which shuts out hght and air from an in- 
 fected prison, and stands guard over its captive ! 
 I thought the inhabitants of the Milanese 
 territory quite prepared for a change, as they 
 are among the most enlightened of the Italians. 
 Their vicinity to the Swiss republics gives them 
 more pohtical knowledge, while, in common with 
 the whole of Italy, they feel their present degra- 
 dation under the government of their German 
 
162 VENICE. 
 
 neighbours, to be worse than subjection to a 
 French yoke. I often heard the comparison 
 made between submission to a barbarian and a 
 civilized master. 
 
 But whencesoever hght is to arise — and had 
 it not been for Austria, it might have shined 
 ere now — the Venetians are like other men, and 
 improvable by the same moral means. If the 
 changes which are pointed out by the general 
 knowledge of the age had been effected in the 
 administration of their government, a new sys- 
 tem introduced into their schools and prisons, 
 and a gradual license to free inquiry granted as 
 the desires of the people enlarged ; though this 
 city could never become again mistress of the 
 commerce of the Indies and Archipelago, yet, 
 what is much better, her children might be in a 
 course of training, to become enlightened, and 
 free, and moral. But so long as Austria governs 
 as at present, Venice must shock the moralist 
 by her impurity, and the mere politician by her 
 
VENICE. 163 
 
 want of the patriotic principle, and energetic 
 character. 
 
 How unlike to these reflections are those which 
 are excited in approaching the metropolis for the 
 commerce of the western world, where New York 
 rises out of the waters, not enshrined in any an- 
 cient glories, in no sort decorated with fanciful 
 images, not even adorned enough to satisfy an 
 imagination, craving more than the elegance of 
 ordinary life ; — but which, as the residence of 
 more than one hundred thousand people, active, 
 laborious, enlightened, free, and in the main re- 
 ligious, exhibits the wonderful spectacle of what 
 human energy and ingenuity can produce in less 
 than two centuries. Fleets now ride where lately 
 an Indian canoe but seldom floated ; and an is- 
 land recently covered with a forest, is now filled 
 with the habitations of men. 
 
 We go in this contrast from the decrepitude 
 of immoral old age, to the force and vitality and 
 sprightliness of youth. Whatever drawback 
 
164 VENICE 
 
 our vices may require from allowable self-gratu- 
 lation at this specimen of present attainment, and 
 promise of farther improvement, we may safely 
 infer that there is an atmosphere which suits 
 man, — and that the religious and political free- 
 dom which abounds in the western republic, is 
 the most important element of that atmosphere. 
 May the example not be quite lost upon Italy 
 herself; when the Germans shall find that they 
 have business enough at home in reforming their 
 own governm'ent, and leave Venice to pursue the 
 regenerating principles which can alone make 
 her citizens worthy of the delightful region in 
 which they live. 
 
[ 165 1 
 
 THE TYROL. 
 
 It was in the month of April that I journeyed 
 from Italy, by the passage of the Tyrol. Soon 
 after leaving Verona, we entered into the defile, 
 and travelled along the left bank of the Adige, 
 which now rolled rapidly, being swollen by the 
 melting of the snows. The mountains approach 
 very near to each other ; and we presently be- 
 held the glistening covering of their Alpine 
 summits. 
 
 Rivoli, so famous as a battle-ground, and 
 scene of the French victories, was the first re- 
 markable object. The plain, though very nar- 
 row, affords su pport for a numerous and most 
 hardy population, who signalized themselves 
 all over the world by their animated resistance 
 to their new northern invaders. 
 
166 THE TYROL. 
 
 The desolations of war were yet visible in 
 1818, in the rained houses and deserted fields. 
 Experience has rooted from the minds of the 
 people here that preference for the authority of 
 their ancient rulers, which subjected them to 
 such frightful ravages. In common with their 
 German brethren, the Tyrolese have found that 
 the promises by which they were roused to their 
 bloody resistance of Bonaparte's domination 
 were altogether fallacious ; that the pledge of 
 constitutional government and light taxation is 
 to be redeemed only by force ; and that the 
 leagues of 1813 and 14 were only compacts be- 
 tween several less powerful tyrants, against one 
 mighty despot. 
 
 The nations of Germany came forth in their 
 uncontrollable strength when the call was to pro- 
 tect their native soil against foreign invasion ; 
 and they rolled back the torrent which was over- 
 whelming Europe. Their sacrifices were to 
 have been recompensed by general freedom, for 
 
THE TYROL. 167 
 
 the shade of which they yet look in vain. But 
 they have been taught a lesson about their own 
 force, when united, that they will not soon for- 
 get ; and their kings, and electors, and dukes, 
 must discover before long, that it is enough that 
 their subjects consent to receive constitutions, 
 rather than to dictate them. The Tyrolese could 
 not now be excited to a simultaneous resistance 
 of French tyranny. 
 
 The benefit of Bonaparte's strong power is 
 everywhere to be discerned in Italy. If his was 
 despotism, it was impartial and unyielding ; it 
 kept the bandit from his prey, if it forced the 
 conscript on his march ; and in the scene of ex- 
 traordinary activity which the continent of Eu- 
 rope exhibited when the din of arms was heard 
 from Archangel to Naples, all found employ- 
 ment and wealth, and counted themselves suf- 
 ficiently rewarded for the loss of ease and quiet- 
 ness. 
 
 This novel scene had an effect quite intoxi- 
 
168 THE TYROL. 
 
 eating upon a people whose energies had not been 
 roused for centuries, and even the Lazzaroni of 
 Naples slept with a good heart upon the snows 
 of Russia. 
 
 The petty tyranny of petty dukes reigning 
 over a single city was so vexatious, that nothing 
 worse could be devised ; and the change to Na- 
 poleon's calculating policy, which engulphed 
 Parma, and Modena, and Monaco, in the king- 
 dom of Italy, and French empire, was hailed as 
 a general good. 
 
 The inhabitants of the Tyrol partake strong- 
 ly of the general discontent, very observable over 
 the face of Europe. They are a people simple 
 in their habits and wants ; fit residents of this 
 picturesque region, and a curious link between 
 the German and Italian nations. They seem 
 to possess a large portion of the good qualities 
 of each. There is much honesty and persevering 
 spirit, united with much sprightliness and inge- 
 nuity. It is the only part of the world where 
 
THE TYROL. 169 
 
 I have seen the love of finery prevail most with 
 the male sex. The men's broad ornamented belts 
 having place for a knife, or some more dead- 
 ly weapon, when contrasted with their hats de- 
 corated with gay-coloured ribbons, had a very 
 ludicrous air. 
 
 The superstition of the inhabitants here ex- 
 ceeds in its painful exhibitions any thing that I 
 elsewhere witnessed. Large crucifixes are hung 
 up on the roads, which, by their shocking car- 
 ving and colouring, are so hideous, that upon 
 the score of taste we should cast them down, even 
 if religious feeling did not require it. These re- 
 presentations come about as near the truth, as 
 the souls that we often see flaming in wood and 
 red paint from purgatory. Can such things be- 
 long to a system of true devotion ^ 
 
 I fell into the company of a Catholic priest, 
 with whom I travelled to Roveredo from Vero- 
 na, who was, like most of his order, neither 
 very learned, nor yet very ignorant ; — suflficient- 
 
170 THE TYROL. 
 
 ly well bred to seek to give pleasure to a stran- 
 ger, and well acquainted with the curious ob- 
 jects after which I inquired. 
 
 The postilion, taking me to be a heretic from 
 my air, was at the pains to tell me that he did 
 not like priests ; but after the manner of the 
 greater part of the lower class of the Italians, 
 he treated the ecclesiastic with great obsequi- 
 ousness when present. 
 
 The mountain on the opposite bank of the 
 Adige rose majestically from the brink of the 
 river, which it almost overhung. Upon asking 
 the name of the summit, I found that it was call- 
 ed " the Hermitage of the Angels'" — " where," 
 said the priest, " a hermit once lived, who was 
 fed by the angels. Such reports are believed 
 in these parts, though it is not essential that 
 they be received by every good Catholic.'" 
 
 I seized the occasion to express the opinion, 
 that it would be much better to teach the peo- 
 ple from the Sacred Scriptures, than from these 
 
THK TYROL 
 
 ni 
 
 legends, giving them the Bible in the vulgar 
 tongue, and inciting them to read it. 
 
 " Ah !" exclaimed he, " that is the heresy of 
 heresies, — the prime heresy of Luther and Cal- 
 vin, which has rent the bowels of the Catholic 
 church, and created sects in all parts of Chris- 
 tendom."" 
 
 I found it in vain to attempt to reason with 
 a man so prejudiced, whose consecration oath 
 bound him to obedience to his superior, else 
 I would have told him that it is better to move 
 in bye-paths, than to perish in the main road ; 
 and that the right of private judgment, accor- 
 ding- to the Scripture, does not release us from 
 the obligation of obedience to this infallible 
 standard. 
 
172 THE TYROL. 
 
 The town of the most importance in the whole 
 length of this narrow valley, from Verona to Inn- 
 spruck, is Trent, famous as the seat of the great 
 Ecclesiastical Council. The air of the place was 
 very gloomy, and I remained in it no longer 
 than was necessary to see the church of Santa 
 Maria Maggiore, where the authorities of the 
 Roman church had been convened to legislate 
 for the world. 
 
 It was here that the Papacy came to matu- 
 rity ; and the wide mantle which covered its 
 abuses stretched till it rent. Whether of the 
 two Catholic historians, we take Pallavicini or 
 Sarpi for our guide through the sinuosities of 
 these councils, we must see that neither the spi- 
 rit of purity nor peace rested upon this assem- 
 blage of cardinals, and priests, and monks ; and 
 that their first endeavour was to give as httle 
 place to reform, as the extending knowledge of 
 the sixteenth century might permit. They de- 
 nied the Scriptures to the laity, and marriage 
 
THE TYUOL. 173 
 
 to the priests, and whatever else might tend to 
 emancipate the people, and substitutr enlight- 
 ened devotion in the stead of their attachment 
 to vain austerities. 
 
 It was a great occasion lost for removing the 
 rust contracted in the course of ages, and for pre- 
 senting Christianity anew to the world, as a ma- 
 jestic edifice built up of lasting truths around 
 an altar kindled with fire from heaven. 
 
 But the Holy Temple was not to be reared 
 by such defiled hands as then held dominion : 
 the hearts that were cloaked over with cardi- 
 nals' garments never rose to so lofty a design. 
 Crimes justified — abuses perpetuated — truth 
 opposed, — such is the history of this last great 
 Popish Council. 
 
 The spirit of our age runs strongly to the 
 point of indifference to the peculiarities of all 
 sects of Christians. They who reflect in the least 
 upon the matter, are more anxious to attend to 
 the articles in which all agree, than to those in 
 
174 THE TYROL. 
 
 which they differ. But it is not to be questioned, 
 that while this feehnf^ is better than violent bi- 
 gotry, there are articles of substantial difference 
 where neutrality is treason to the cause of truth. 
 It may seem like attempting to raise a cry which 
 has gone down, to declare that such are many 
 of the grounds of division between Protestants 
 and Papists. 
 
 The notion of liberality has so far possessed 
 those who influence public opinion, that we often 
 now find the Reformers themselves rather ar- 
 raigned as criminals to be pardoned, because in 
 the heat of controversy they sometimes offended 
 against charity , — than counted noble champions 
 against whatever degraded hiunan reason, and 
 destroyed divine religion. Thus the manner in 
 which the history of Servetus has been served 
 up to suit the palate of human malignity has 
 been made to weigh more against Calvin, than 
 all his unwearied labours and countless sacri- 
 fices, caused by the purest disinterestedness and 
 
THE TYROL. 175 
 
 most ardent love of God and man, are suffered 
 to do in his favour. The advocates of indiffer- 
 ence do not tell us that persecution was the un- 
 happy spirit of the age ; that it infected magis- 
 trate and people ; that the free cities of Germany 
 and many cantons of Switzerland, petitioned the 
 municipality of Geneva to do what Calvin did 
 not, perhaps could not, hinder. They assert 
 that Servetus was burnt by Calvin. 
 
 The event is to be deplored : we would plead 
 for the free conflict of truth with error, unaided 
 by civil penalties : we feel that truth needs only 
 open field and sunshine. But Calvin is not to 
 be censured exclusively for a mistake common 
 to all his contemporaries ; nor ought the fangs 
 of his enemies to be allowed to fasten upon the 
 single error of his life. 
 
 The Roman Catholic faith is so much impro- 
 ved by the indirect influence of Protestantism, 
 that it ought never to be judged of in a Protes- 
 tant country. We hear of many palliations of 
 
176 THE TYROL. 
 
 its practices. It is said that prayers to the Vir- 
 gin and Saints are offered to them as mediators, 
 not as gods ; yet we have but to see the mass 
 of the people in any Catholic nation, to know 
 that the saints and angels have taken the place 
 of the Dii minoj-es et tutelares worshipped by 
 their Pagan ancestors. At one time, the tra- 
 veller sees a statue of the Virgin and ChUd with 
 a large bunch of grapes, represented after the 
 manner of Pomona, and at another, temples de- 
 dicated Divo Francisco 
 
 We know that the Carnival was admitted in- 
 to the church, because the Saturnalia were ne- 
 ver forced out of it. And those who may have 
 the good or evil fortune to see the asses, and 
 mules, and horses at Rome, (some of them sent 
 by cardinals and princes), sprinkled with holy 
 water, in the name of St Anthony, as I did, 
 may think that the august Spirit of Christianity 
 must long since have fled from so disgusting a 
 spectacle. 
 
THE TYROL. 177 
 
 The present Roman Pontiff may have par- 
 taken of the mild spirit of the age, but he has 
 none of its illumination ; and while we commend 
 the retired devotion of the monk, we deplore 
 the superstition of the Pope, and the despotism 
 of the Sovereign. No man has a right to receive 
 the investiture of civil authority, who devotes 
 himself to the observances of solitary religion ; 
 and though Cardinal Consalvi may be an able 
 deputy, it were better to disrobe churchmen be- 
 fore they are girded with the sword. 
 
 I left the walls of Trent with joy, for the 
 green fields, and sunshine, and song of birds, 
 and mountain torrents, and the last traces of 
 snow which fringed their sources, and all the 
 other indications of nature reviving in the beau- 
 ty of spring. 
 
178 THE TYROL. 
 
 Innspruck is a large and fine town upon the 
 banks of the Inn ; it has at times been the resi- 
 dence of a little court, which has left many tra- 
 ces of urbanity among its inhabitants. 
 
 Halle, situated at a few miles distance, was 
 crowded with its annual fair, when I rambled so 
 far to see its salt mines. These are in the moun- 
 tains ; and though of less extent than those of 
 Saltzburg, are yet very curious. The water, im- 
 pregnated with the salt, is conducted for miles 
 from the springs to the river side, where the fa- 
 cility of obtaining wood has induced them to 
 fix their furnaces. The salt is a government mo- 
 nopoly. In following the sources of the springs 
 into the mountain, and endeavouring to come at 
 the reservoirs of water, they have mined to a 
 great depth. These extensive caverns were at 
 this time fitted up for an illumination, on the 
 occasion of a visit of the Archduke Regnier, 
 then on his way to IMilan, to govern the Italian 
 territories of his imperial brother. 
 
THE TYROL. 179 
 
 The mountains here are so high and rugged, 
 that eagles build in their sides. I saw the poor 
 people clambering up the precipices, on the diffi- 
 cult enterprize, of robbing the nests of the king 
 of birds. 
 
[ 180 ] 
 
 RHINE AND CONSTANCE. 
 
 Soon after descending from the Alps, which 
 divide the Tyrol from the northern Cantons of 
 Switzerland, I came upon the banks of the Lake 
 of Constance. Having just before seen the sun 
 reflected from the perennial veil of snow whicli 
 lies upon their lofty summits, I now beheld the 
 evening rays at Bregentz, glittering in the un- 
 dvdating wave. 
 
 The feeling of loneliness has seldom more 
 completely absorbed me, than in my journey 
 from Innspruck towards these beautiful banks. 
 The mountains so precipitous, the vales so nar- 
 row, the road so winding, the people so rude — 
 all combined to give a solitary American tra- 
 
THE RHINE AND COKSTANCE. 181 
 
 velier the sentiment that many hearts, cold to 
 the throbbing of his, interposed between himself 
 and home ; and that many difficulties stood, like 
 the immense masses of rock, which shut in his 
 way, only to be overcome by personal and per- 
 severing exertion. 
 
 It was upon a Sabbath afternoon, in the val- 
 ley of Nassereit, that I walked out into the fields, 
 at some distance from the village, having just 
 left the church, in which the superstitions of 
 the Catholic faith were exhibited in their gross- 
 est form. Pursuing a pathway beside a ra- 
 pid torrent, I reflected much upon the different 
 scenes which they were in the midst of, who 
 had the sympathy of nature, and the sympathy 
 of faith with one so far away ; and how grate- 
 ful they should be, who have their parentage 
 and habitation fixed by the divine goodness near 
 a purified sanctuary, and within the hearing of 
 heavenly wisdom. — Almost unconsciously I had 
 reached an eminence, whence the opposite mouu 
 
182 THE KHINE AND CONSTANCE. 
 
 lain in this narrow plain rose abruptly, and per- 
 ceived that I was standing by the inclosure of 
 the field of burial for the people of this little 
 town. The grave-stones were set up rudely as 
 are the dwellings of the living, but form as cer- 
 tain memorials, as those monumental marbles 
 that are found in cities, of the grief from which 
 none of our race is exempted. 
 
 Who, in such circumstances, could fail to 
 make vows of penitence in sight of the All-per- 
 vading Spirit, or hesitate to pray for a " bet- 
 ter resurrection," through the grace and might 
 of the Saviour of sinners ? 
 
 Some days afterwards, when I came down 
 " once more upon the waters,'"' it seemed a hbe- 
 ration from enthralment, for it brought the ap- 
 parent means of a return to country and friends 
 more immediately within controul. This sen- 
 timent was quickened when I arrived at the 
 Rhine, here a little brook ; but the dashings of 
 whose flowing element, in one long-continued 
 
THE RHINF: and CONSTANCE. 183 
 
 channel, were descending to mingle with the 
 Atlantic waves. 
 
 It quickens the imagination like a picture of 
 spring, or a scene of infancy, to stand at the 
 head of a mighty river, and trace the wander- 
 ings of its rapid current ; the spring draws af- 
 ter it a whole year of varied incident ; infancy 
 is before a life of action. Above all, the mighty 
 Rhine, which rolls past so many castles where 
 the dreams of superstition, and nursery tales of 
 horror, have had their origin ; which refreshes 
 so many fields, that nature has dressed out in 
 beauty, and man drenched in blood ; which en- 
 livens so many cities celebrated from the most 
 ancient time, may well affect any one who treads 
 its banks with poetical associations. It has the 
 real and imaginative of human life in one pic- 
 ture, and like its own beautiful vineyards may 
 be a source of wild inspiration ; or, hke the 
 scene of Luther's trial, since its waters wash the 
 walls of Worms, may excite our sobered reli- 
 
184 THE KHINE AND CONSTANCE. 
 
 gious reflection ; or, as what passes the sands of 
 Holland is lost in the ocean, it may lead us to 
 consider, that however large a space we occupy 
 in this world, the earth will soon lay claim to its 
 portion of us, and the rest be merged in the 
 ocean of eternity. 
 
 Constance owes its principal celebrity to the 
 Council whioh was convened here ; when three 
 Popes, at the same time, sat in St Peter's chair, 
 and scandalized all Europe by their quarrel. 
 Here John Huss and Jerome of Prague were 
 martyred. The town has never flourished since ; 
 and now numbers scarcely more inhabitants than 
 edifices. 
 
 My journey to SchafFhausen lay along the' 
 road, from which we sec the spot identified with 
 
THE KHINE AND CONSTANCE. 185 
 
 the most interesting recollections which history 
 has connected with Constance. It was on a 
 bright morning, in the earliest part of May, that 
 I visited the beautiful meadow which was the 
 scene of John Huss's martyrdom. I had before, 
 with the zeal of a devotee, taken a relic from a 
 garment said to have been his, which is preser- 
 ved in the hall of the castle where the trial was 
 held. The stillness of nature, the song of birds, 
 and beauty of flowers, as I passed over this field, 
 were in affecting contrast with the demoniacal 
 uproar that it exhibited in 1415, when the Bo- 
 hemian Apostle was led forth to offer up his 
 life for the faith of Jesus. 
 
 Ah ! how well was it to have made such a 
 sacrifice to secure an immortal mansion ! What 
 would it have been to him noi&, if he had re- 
 ceived the triple crown as Rome's sovereign in 
 reward of disloyalty to his heavenly Lord ? How 
 little are those moments of anguish to be com- 
 
186 THE RHINK AND CONSTANCE. 
 
 pared to the centuries of blessedness he has 
 since enjoyed, while, from the celestial height, 
 where among " the cloud of witnesses," floating 
 in the azure of heaven, he has looked upon this 
 field of his agony ? And yet even four centu- 
 ries of blessedness are as nothing, when compa- 
 red with the circling ages of everlasting beati- 
 tude. 
 
 Who, in the sight of such a memorial, would 
 dare to sacrifice to momentary passion the sense 
 of duty to Him who made us ; — the sense of 
 conscience to Him who died that we might be 
 saved; and fail in prayer, that the Spirit that 
 gave more than mortal power to the heart of 
 his ancient servant; may grant unto us, if not 
 through the same trial, at least the same vic- 
 tory of faith .'' 
 
THE RHINK AND CONSTANCE. 187 
 
 The ride is very beautiful from Constance to 
 Schaffhausen. The banks of the Rhine are 
 prettily wooded, and the stream not yet so large 
 as to injure the picturesque appearance of each 
 side. It was evening before I reached the town, ' 
 whose celebrated waterfall is the principal at- 
 traction to the traveller 
 
 To it I was led the next day, through vine- 
 yards and fertile fields, and looked down upon 
 its tumbling foam from a precipice of about sixty 
 feet. It is a majestic cataract, capable of exci- 
 ting profound interest, even in those who are 
 least liable to be affected by nature's works. 
 
 Yet there is something, in a waterfall espe- 
 cially, which demands the solitariness of nature; 
 we wish to scramble over rocks and through 
 glens, until we approach the gulf, which seems 
 in moving torment, like a strong man in the 
 agonies of death ; or from a projecting cliff", 
 with almost unsteady hand and eye, we would 
 look forth upon the descending flood. 
 
188 THE RHINE AND CONSTANCE. 
 
 Here, on the contrary, from a trim little box 
 of a garden and the window of a tea-room, dex- 
 terously perched upon the best site of observa- 
 tion, you behold the Falls of Schaffhausen. 
 
 True, if such a thing were done at Niagara, 
 it would all be lost in the astounding uproar ; 
 every surrounding object is forgotten, when we 
 see a river, which is more than two miles wide 
 a little above, narrowed into a breadth of three 
 quarters of a mile, and sent down in one sheet 
 of one hundred and sixty-five perpendicular feet 
 into the profound abyss. 
 
 But Schaffhausen cannot afford such a di- 
 minution of its grandeur, as the minuter works 
 of art produce when thus intruded amid the su- 
 blimer works of nature. 
 
THE RHINE AND CONSTANCE. 189 
 
 In pursuing my journey to Zurich, I descend- 
 ed upon the Rhine as far as Eghsau, enjoying 
 the sight of its numerous windings and varying 
 prospects. One of the most remarkable objects 
 in this course is Rhinau, at two leagues distance 
 from SchafFhausen, an Abbey of Benedictine 
 Monks, built upon a little island in the midst 
 of the river. It was founded as long ago as 
 778, by one of the ancestors of the Guelpli fa- 
 mily, which has since given kings to Great Bri- 
 tain, and remains an interesting monument of 
 the superstition of former times, and mausoleum 
 for some of its learning. Its ancient turrets 
 and time-beaten walls, recall vividly to mind 
 the period when the crosier and the sword were 
 worn together by warring bishops, and the coat 
 of mail was often substituted in the fierce con- 
 tests of ambition, for the lawn of spiritual au- 
 thority. 
 
[ 190 ] 
 
 GENEVA. 
 
 Ctemeva, situated at the outlet of its most beau- 
 tiful lake, in the most picturesque region of the 
 world, has become invested with a moral inte- 
 rest, of such a glowing kind, as belongs to no 
 other spot in Europe. We come to it, not as 
 to a monument to be reverenced, but as to a re- 
 treat to be beloved ; we regard it not with awe, 
 but affection ; we have a home- feeling here which 
 is never possessed at Rome or Athens. 
 
 Its ancient character is far less considered 
 than its present; we think little of the encamp- 
 ment of Juhus Caesar, when we enter the dwell- 
 ing-place of those whose eloquence and senti- 
 ment have peopled this region with recollections 
 which are good and bad in about equal propor- 
 
(JENEVA. 191 
 
 tion. We cannot resist the effect produced by 
 the fascination of sophistical sentiment in Rous- 
 seau, even though he has himself shewn us his 
 most corrupt heart ; nor the brilliancy of Vol- 
 taire, since we have seen tlie fruit of his atheist- 
 ical principles. But before these men of ge- 
 nius and hardy impiety decked the fields in 
 which they walked with the graces of accom- 
 plished intellect, and gave them a sort of com- 
 panionship in their elevation, Geneva was the 
 seat of letters,, the chief city of free and enlight- 
 ened Switzerland. A variety of causes tended 
 to give it this pre-eminence ; and among them, 
 the principal is, that it so early embraced the 
 Reformation. It thus became a city of refuge 
 for the persecuted from all the nations of Europe. 
 There are few of the conspicuous families now 
 at Geneva, who do not trace their lineage to no- 
 ble ancestors, who fled from Italy or France, 
 and exchanged rank and false religion at home, 
 for quietness and peace of conscience in this 
 
192 GKNEVA. 
 
 free city. Their numbers were so great that of 
 themselves they formed a little world, in which 
 each, with diminished wealth, but with relatively 
 increased consequence, took his place, and add- 
 ed his light, until Europe looked upon this 
 spot as the centre of civilization, — ^the learned 
 city — the sphere of a constellation, made up of 
 stars, many of which might singly have been 
 the boast of kingdoms. 
 
 In proportion to its population, there is at 
 Geneva much fewer of that class we call the 
 lowest, than in the other cities of Switzerland, 
 or indeed in any city in the world which is not 
 professedly the seat of a university, whence all 
 but learned men are excluded. 
 
 Even those who are from necessity confined 
 to mechanical employments, have a desire for 
 general knowledge not to be perceived else- 
 where. I accidentally heard, in the work-shop 
 of a watchmaker here, a discussion among the 
 mechanics about the authority of the Dean of 
 
the University, which exhibited intelligence and 
 acuteness far beyond the ordinary range of men 
 of this station. 
 
 Before the middle of the eighteenth century, 
 they were the most religious, as well as best 
 informed community in Europe. Indeed, it 
 may fairly be supposed that religion and intel- 
 ligence must go together in the lower orders, 
 and that enlightened religion alone can make an 
 enlightened populace. Weaker motives than 
 such as a future life presents, will not overcome 
 the inertness produced by bodily labour, and 
 induce the habit of redeeming time from repose 
 to be expended in gaining knowledge. 
 
 The spirit of inquiry, which had become ha- 
 bitual, was made by Voltaire, when he took up 
 his residence at Ferney, the instrument of in- 
 troducing his licentious opinions ; and he wrote 
 tracts abounding in immorality and impiety, 
 which he circulated in all the work-shops with 
 the industry of a fiend. I shall not disgrace my 
 
194 GENEVA. 
 
 page by naming the sort of composition which 
 the historian of Louis XIV. had the impudence 
 to avow and print. It was proved that he could 
 count well upon the seeds of depravity in the 
 breasts of his readers ; for his sentiments became 
 popular at Geneva, and continue so to this 
 hour. 
 
 It is cheering, however, to know, that the 
 Spirit of Truth, who works when and by what 
 means he will, is at last counteracting these 
 evils, and that the self-same printing-press, 
 which was employed by Voltaire at Ferney to 
 disseminate his abominations, is now removed 
 to Geneva, and, under the guidance of those 
 who " fear God and hate evil," is used to mul- 
 tiply copies of the Scriptures and religious tracts, 
 which, under the divine blessing, will purge out 
 infidelity and all its train of corruptions. 
 
 What Rousseau published under the style 
 and title of Citizen of Geneva, was to be studied 
 by his fellow-citizens, who took a pride in this 
 
GENEVA. 193 
 
 wonder of tlie age ; and while the father was 
 admiring the Contract Social, the daughter was 
 preparing herself for a mother's duties by weep- 
 ing over the Nouvelle Heloise. 
 
 It was not to be expected, that the mass of his 
 readers should separate truth from falsehood, 
 or distinguish between axioms which were pro- 
 nounced with eloquence, and the confident as- 
 sertion which covered his ignorance, or not con- 
 found his noble spirit of independence with his 
 licentious doctrines and immoral practices. His 
 opinions have generally been taken in their sum 
 total ; such as when this self-sontradicting phi- 
 losopher affirms that " Christianity is a rehgion, 
 true and divine," and that " it is impossible to 
 believe its dogmas," and that wherever we are 
 born, whether under the Lama of Thibet, or 
 the Impostor of Mecca, or the Author of the 
 only true religion, we must obey that which rules 
 in our native country. 
 
 The inconclusive reasonings, and brilliant 
 
196 GEKEVA. 
 
 theories of the author of Emile have not been 
 ■without a tendency quite obvious in producing 
 the present religious character of Geneva. The 
 name of Christian, indeed, has not been thrown 
 off; but from the majority the spirit of Chris- 
 tianity has fled with the profession of its pecu- 
 liar doctrines. All that is distinctively Christian 
 in our divine religion, such as the dignity of its 
 Author, his existence before he appeared on 
 earth " for us men and our salvation," the ne- 
 cessity which the depra^dty of human nature has 
 produced for divine interference in its behalf, 
 and aU that belongs, not to Cahdnism simply, 
 but to Christianity, has passed away before the 
 chilling influence of Arian and Socinian dog- 
 matism ; until professors, who sit in the seat of 
 pubHc instruction, have declared it to be a mat- 
 ter of indifference what we believe to be His at- 
 tributes, to whom the church has ever offered 
 its adoration. 
 Dr Priestley, with characteristic candour, has 
 
GENKVA. 197 
 
 affirmed, that if his sentiments be true, tlie Chris- 
 tian world has been for centuries in the practice 
 of idolatry ; but the doctors at Geneva imagine 
 themselves capable of reconciling the most con- 
 tradictory extremes. And as it is not necessary 
 to dive deep into the mysteries of things indif- 
 ferent, many of them have given up the study 
 of divine wisdom for the pursuit of human lite- 
 rature. 
 
 The religious character of the pastors at Ge- 
 neva has recently been tried, and their princi- 
 ples stand before the world in bold relief, in the 
 experience of the last five years. Arian opinions 
 have infected a majority of them. The spread 
 of error may be traced chiefly to the pride of 
 human learning. More than half a century ago, 
 some of the ministers began to feel themselves 
 honoured by Voltaire"'s correspondence, in the 
 same way as that distinguished character Prin- 
 cipal Robertson permitted the profaneness of 
 Hume to be familiarly expressed to him, as if ta- 
 
198 GENEVA. 
 
 lent alone could be a basis for friendship be- 
 tween a reverend minister of Edinburgh, and 
 a scoffing infidel. 
 
 The consequence of this alliance, and of the 
 example of great men, has been much the same 
 in Scotland and in Switzerland. The learned 
 and eloquent Principal was long the head of a 
 party who brood over the church, too many 
 of them without zeal for its spiritual interests, 
 or solicitude for the spread of Christianity over 
 the world: — " moderate," indeed, in every good 
 design, but fierce enough in restraining the 
 christian ardour of their brethren. 
 
 It had long been much questioned how far er- 
 ror had laid hold of the people of Geneva ; and 
 they who had studied the history of the Refor- 
 mation, were curious to know the state of reli- 
 gious opinion on the spot where it was cradled. 
 From the time that the exiles in Queen Mary*'s 
 reign found an asylum in the neighbourhood of 
 these Alps, the English churches especially have 
 
GENEVA, 199 
 
 felt a deep interest in the affairs of this city, and 
 an exdivening aifection for those who stand upon 
 a soil so sacred. It was with many enthusiastic 
 emotions that I came as to a place of rest in pil- 
 grimage, to the city of Farel and Viret, Beza 
 and Calvin. 
 
 I then personally observed a set of facts which 
 offer a full exemplification of the principles of 
 the majority of " the Venerable Company of 
 Pastors." 
 
 In 1816, Mr Malan was a minister in this 
 church, and also a regent in the college. He had 
 become convinced that the ancient doctrines, as 
 expressed in the Helvetic and French Confes- 
 sions of Faith, were the truths which the Bible 
 teaches, and which it belongs to the ministers 
 of the gospel conscientiously and at all hazards 
 to support. Since the Company of Pastors has 
 grown so liberal as to require no signature to 
 their constitution, he might have wavered to his 
 dying hour, without an external necessity for 
 

 200 GENEVA. 
 
 decision. And since this same Company has 
 improved its version of the word of God, if he 
 had become Arian, he might have lived unmo- 
 lested and honoured to the end of his days. But, 
 alas ! for his repose — he became a Calvinist. 
 His preaching of course partook of the complex- 
 ion of his opinions ; but the free expression of 
 them in the pulpit where Calvin and Beza had 
 preached, was at once considered a monstrous 
 heresy by the aged doctors, who immediately 
 published a law requiring all ministers not to 
 touch upon the doctrines of our Saviour''s divi- 
 nity, of human depravity, the influence of the 
 Divine Spirit, and the perseverance of the saints. 
 One of the leaders in this matter had already 
 affirmed in a sermon, that it did not concern us 
 to know whether Jesus Christ were divine or 
 not. 
 
 Upon his refusal to sign this " reglement,"" 
 Mr Malan was silenced. The company after- 
 wards offered some explanation of their law, de- 
 
GENEVA. 201 
 
 daring that they meant not to forbid the ex- 
 pression of a belief in these doctrines, but the 
 treating them in the spirit of controversy in the 
 pulpit. With this understanding Mr Malan 
 signed the law, and recommenced preaching, 
 but was soon after silenced positively and final- 
 ly, his doctrines being past endurance. 
 
 In a court composed of more than twenty mi- 
 nisters of the gospel, but five or six could be 
 found to dissent from this example of ecclesias- 
 tical tyranny. Mr Malan, for a time, quietly 
 endured the oppression ; for though silenced in 
 the canton, he could preach in the neighbour- > 
 ing districts of Switzerland. The Church of 
 Lausanne had already shown itself discontented 
 with the arbitary measures in reference to his 
 case. 
 
 But the men who professed themselves indif- 
 ferent to confessions of faith and religious opi- 
 nions, or rather violently inimical to these bar- 
 riers against the influx of error, as being inter- 
 
 TV 
 
 ) 
 
202 GENEVA. 
 
 ruptions to free discussion and christian fellow- 
 ship, could not stop here in their persecution of 
 a christian brother. 
 
 Mr Malan was still regent in the college, 
 from which he derived means, not superabun- 
 dant, for the support of himself, his wife, and 
 four children. The rector and professors all 
 acknowledged the singular ability which he pos- 
 sessed for the duties of his office, and his un- 
 common aptitude, in a most affectionate man- 
 ner, to instruct the scholars committed to his 
 care. But though well learned in Greek and 
 Latin, unfortunately, as they thought, he had 
 learned those heretical doctrines which are found 
 in the public confessions of all the reformed 
 churches ; and being a Calvinist, he was not to 
 be permitted to remain in the university which 
 Calvin founded, and where his laws, framed two 
 centuries ago, are still in force. 
 
 They accordingly began by expressing their 
 surprise that he used the Bible in the religious 
 
GENEVA. 203 
 
 instruction of his class, and that he did not con- 
 fine himself simply to their catechism. He an- 
 swered that he made no change in the formula, 
 but that in developing its principles, he taught 
 truths which were not contained in it. Upon 
 their demanding what were his principles, he de- 
 clared them to be entirely Calvinistic, and that 
 he taught according to Calvin's catechism. 
 
 After some delay, " la Venerable Compagnie 
 Academique"" commanded him to conform him- 
 self strictly to their catechism, and to give no 
 further development to its meaning. To this 
 he replied, by asking them to examine whether 
 his development contradicted their doctrines, 
 affirming that he could not conscientiously 
 change their nature. Upon the receipt of this 
 letter, the Company dismissed him from his of- 
 fice, without further explanation. 
 
 It was necessary, before this decree could 
 take eft'ect, that it should be sanctioned by the 
 
204 GENEVA. 
 
 Council of State. To this supreme tribunal Mr 
 Malan presented a memorial, in which, among 
 other things, he shows that it was impossible 
 that he should express either his assent or dis- 
 sent in respect to the opinions of his superiors 
 in the Venerable Company, until they should 
 give him some clue to comprehend their system. 
 He knew, because he had himself heard from 
 their own mouths, that some of them denied the 
 divinity of Christ and original sin, and others 
 the influences of the Spirit ; the greater number, 
 salvation by grace ; and since they were conti- 
 nually opposed to each other, he might, by seek- 
 ing to please one, displease the rest. He stated 
 that if they would designate any confession, he 
 could decide ; but that while they kept him in ig- 
 norance, he must follow his conscience, which as- 
 sented to the confession of faith of the Helvetic 
 churches, which had been acknowledged and 
 sworn to by all the Protestant Cantons. 
 
GENEVA. 205 
 
 His letter, which is addressed according to 
 the style which their usage demands — " To the 
 Magnificent Council of State of the Republic 
 Canton of Geneva,"" — concludes in these words: 
 " I most respectfully entreat your lordships to 
 weigh well both the nature of my obligations and 
 the conduct which I have pursued ; and to as- 
 sure yourselves by examining the letters which 
 I have addressed to the Venerable Company, 
 that I do not contradict the constitution which 
 recognizes the reformed religion, nor the Eccle- 
 siastical canons with which I am absolutely in 
 conformity in doctrine ; nor the rules of the Ve- 
 nerable Company, who, by their renunciation of 
 every confession of faith, cannot, without perse- 
 cution, condemn any one.*" 
 
 The Council of State confirmed the unjust 
 decree, and thus deserves part of the opprobri- 
 um of this act of persecution and tyranny. 
 
 This history of the " Acts and Proceedings'" 
 of the moderate party in the Church of Geneva, 
 
206 GENEVA. 
 
 will give a better insight into their religious cha- 
 racter, than any general description. I find no 
 fault with any man for changing his principles 
 upon good reason given, and his own conscience 
 is to be supreme judge of the reason. The pas- 
 tors of Geneva may become Arians or Socini- 
 ans, if they please ; — to their own Master they 
 stand or fall ; — ^but let them avow their heresy, 
 and no longer pretend to belong to that church 
 of Christ from which they have separated. They 
 must not hypocritically present themselves to 
 our view, under the ancient and honourable 
 garb in which we have been accustomed to be- 
 hold reformers and learned doctors. They are 
 no longer of that Church of Geneva which we 
 have been used to venerate as the body which 
 owned such members as Pictet, and Turretini, 
 and Diodati. 
 
 I do not object to Mr IMalan's being divested 
 of his charge, if it had been done in an open 
 manner : it is but reasonable that parents should 
 
GENEVA. 207 
 
 be anxious to have their children instructed in 
 their own principles. But we can discern in this 
 account many of the most offensive features of 
 religious persecution. 
 
 The Council of State have recently become 
 tired of their ecclesiastical advisers : they have 
 given Mr Malan permission to build a chapel 
 beyond the walls, where he now exercises his 
 ministry, and is doubtless to be one important 
 instrument in renovating the face of this most 
 interesting portion of the Christian world. 
 
 The society at Geneva is of that polished cha- 
 racter which naturally belongs to its cultivated 
 inhabitants. There is a sociability, and air of 
 kindness, which give it a powerful charm, even 
 to a passing stranger ; and yet none of that fa- 
 miliarity which sometimes shocks us in inter- 
 
208 GENEVA. 
 
 course with people of a small or provincial town. 
 There is scarcely an evening in the week, in 
 which some lady does not hold her soiree, at 
 which you find not only the lighter folk who 
 float around a drawing-room, but also the most 
 grave and learned professors, whose scientific 
 attainments fill Europe with their name. The 
 deep researches which have occupied their morn- 
 ing, only render them the more disengaged for 
 the evening circle ; and when science is thus in- 
 troduced, it is without dogmatism or ostentation. 
 It at first struck me with some surprise to ob- 
 serve this ease of society, this absence of pre- 
 tension in men well known to fame ; and I com- 
 pared it with the air of assumed consequence 
 which sciolists have often exhibited to my eye, 
 because they have read a few pages of what 
 these men have written. The real possessor of 
 knowledge does not require to be approached 
 with the feeling of a worshipper advancing to' 
 the Grand Lama ; he has those intrinsic qua- 
 
GENEVA. 209 
 
 lities which can bear rigid examination ; Pictet 
 and Prevost do not hesitate to enter where they 
 can be measured by ordinary men. 
 
 This sort of society, then, has the greatest 
 possible interest ; and in no city on the conti- 
 nent can an American spend his time with so 
 much profit as well as satisfaction. The man- 
 ners are more like those of his native country, 
 than any where else out of England. Indeed, 
 I know not how much of Mr Hume''s doctrine 
 of cause and effect may be appHed to the fact, 
 but it seems to me that good domestic society is 
 seldom found out of the region where tea is the 
 prevaihng beverage ; and although we cannot 
 suppose that this herb has much that is intel- 
 lectual in it, or that we import our ideas from 
 China, yet it can be explained how the feeling 
 of home and quiet society should become asso- 
 ciated with a refreshment which collects an un- 
 ceremonious family circle at an hour when the 
 more serious occupations of the day are over. 
 
210 GENEVA. 
 
 According to your taste, you may select in 
 these parties the style of conversation which you 
 prefer ; for the poKtics of France are discussed 
 in one corner of the drawing-room ; and in ano- 
 ther, the domestic economy of the industrious 
 bees ; one lady criticises the last new poem, 
 while her neighbour descends to the more easy 
 topic of how the colours of her dress are to be 
 adapted to her complexion. 
 
 The general acquaintance of the Genevese 
 with the literature of the English language, adds 
 so much to the number of subjects which a 
 stranger holds in common with the friends who 
 receive him kindly, that we are soon placed at 
 our ease after a first introduction. For when we 
 have dilated to the full upon the beauty of the 
 lake and the belles liorreiirs of Chamouni, we 
 are answered by an eloquent expression of ad- 
 miration of the literature of our native language, 
 and a criticism on Scott, and Byron, and Camp- 
 bell. 
 
GENEVA. 211 
 
 No where in the world is intercourse so easy 
 with the living oracles of wisdom, as well as with 
 those possessed of the lighter accomplishments. 
 Geneva is so much the resort of learned and no- 
 ble strangers, that it is almost like making a 
 tour through many countries, to have spent a 
 month in this city. If you seek for some one 
 well acquainted with the Polish constitution, 
 or the condition of the people of Moscow, or 
 Edinburgh, or of the North American Indians, 
 you may find at the first turn persons competent 
 to satisfy an enlightened curiosity. I select my 
 examples not at hazard, but from what I have 
 seen in a single coterie. 
 
 Besides, the Genevans themselves very fre- 
 quently devote many years of their youth to fo- 
 reign travel, and possess that lively interest in 
 foreign persons and objects which enables them 
 to value these associations. It is sometimes 
 quite like being admitted to a congress of dele- 
 gates from many nations, to be one of a circle at 
 
212 GENEVA. 
 
 the houses of the learned professors in its fa- 
 mous university. 
 
 The simpHcity and frugality of the town have 
 recommended it as a place of instruction for 
 young men from very remote parts, and are such 
 as may surprise one accustomed to the brilliancy 
 and expense of Paris. But when we learn to 
 estimate true worth, whatever be its garb, we 
 shall think that a competent share of exterior 
 elegance is here combined with the invaluable 
 qualities of knowledge, benevolence, and virtue. 
 For, in comparison with their neighbours, the 
 Genevese are a most virtuous people ; their mo- 
 rals have been injured by the contamination of 
 French society, and after they were added to 
 the Empire, by the dissolute officers of the Im- 
 perial army. But they are recovering from this 
 evil ; and their political abhorrence of what is 
 French, will aid them to see more clearly that 
 nothing can be more degrading to their cantoii, 
 since the Helvetic confederation has been re- 
 
GENEVA. 213, 
 
 newed, than to foster, or even endure, the vices 
 of the late period of French tyranny. 
 
 Military men at best are not often the most 
 moral part of the community ; but the instru- 
 ments of Bonaparte's despotism seem to me the 
 furthest removed from all restraints of principle 
 or feeling. The evils which they brought upon 
 Geneva by their intercourse are well known ; 
 and wherever I have met them in any part of 
 Europe, they have exhibited a pretty uniform 
 character of selfishness, covered with the thin 
 veil of professed kindness, connected with the 
 most unprincipled libertinism avowed and open- 
 ly practised. It is horrible to hear their creed, 
 if that can be called a creed, which is made up 
 of negatives and denials : for example, that 
 Christianity is false; that our souls die with 
 our bodies ; that the possession of passions is 
 good warrant for their gratification ; that the lit- 
 tle crimes of man against man are not noticed 
 by his Creator, if indeed such an august Being 
 
214 GENEVA. 
 
 exist ; and that there is no moral obhgation 
 which does not arise out of human expediency. 
 All arguments from law are of no avail with him 
 who has been so long accustomed to the argu- 
 ment of the sword, and all the terrors of the fu- 
 ture world are nursery tales to the hardy infi- 
 del. The youth of France and Switzerland 
 were drawn away from all the charities of home 
 to be crowded together in that moving city of 
 plague, the camp, where these were the only 
 current opinions. During the Italian campaigns, 
 Geneva was on the high road of miUtary opera- 
 tion. 
 
 Now that it has become the pride of the ci- 
 tizens, that they are no longer Frenchmen but 
 Swiss, there is an appearance that tliey will 
 seek to emulate the former virtues of the Re- 
 public, for good morals are the basis of the edi- 
 fice of national prosperity and glory. Gene- 
 va, though much fallen, has yet an elevated 
 standing ; the domestic virtues are cherished, 
 
GENEVA. 215 
 
 good principles honoured, Christian habits es- 
 teemed, vice is not endured in the light. But 
 here, as every where, the training of all classes, 
 not simply by moral rules, but by strong Chris- 
 tian principles, can alone be the safeguard of 
 their honour, and pledge of their present and 
 future happiness ; it is only the bringing the 
 truths of the Bible into daily operation which 
 can regulate the conscience and purify the heart. 
 
 The form of civil government at Geneva is 
 very singular, when compared with American 
 ideas of republican simplicity. It has the vice of 
 all old modes of administration : the people are 
 over much governed ; there is no escaping the 
 minute and vigilant wisdom which is vexatious- 
 ly occupied in labouring for your benefit, to re- 
 move mischiefs arising only from its interfe- 
 rence. 
 
216 GENEVA. 
 
 A censorship of the press is kept up, and it 
 is a curious sequel to the history of M. Malan, 
 that M. Cheneviere, who had been a principal in 
 his persecution, having published a small vo- 
 lume in which he ventured to reprobate the re- 
 establishment of the Jesuits in Fribourg, found 
 its circulation interdicted by the Council of 
 State, who feared that it might shake the firm 
 Helvetic Confederacy. 
 
[ ^17 ] 
 
 FRENCH PROTESTANTS. 
 
 In making a survey of the religious character 
 of a people, some fixed standard is required ; and 
 as I am a Christian, I profess, in my judgment 
 of men and their opinions, to be governed by the 
 Christian's law. Receiving myself, as far as I 
 am acquainted with its principles, the Bible, as 
 the rule of faith and practice, if I censure other 
 men's doctrines or conduct, it is no fault of 
 mine, but theirs who differ from the infallible 
 standard. 
 
 So much may seem necessary to be said, since 
 the world has advanced so wondrously in the 
 science of liberality, that if a man be not a dis- 
 organizer in society, he may profess what prin- 
 ciples of rebellion he pleases against the King 
 of Heaven ; and they are in great danger of 
 
218 l-UKNCH PROTESTANTS. 
 
 being accounted persecuting bigots who dare to 
 censure unfaithfulness to the truth. The dis- 
 avowal of party motives and persecuting rancour 
 is due to myself, since these are not conscious- 
 ly cherished ; and is of importance, when in 
 sorrow, not in anger, we declare what we have 
 foimd in churches fallen from their ancient pu- 
 rity. 
 
 It is but a preparation for deep disaj)point- 
 ment when the Christian traveller studies the 
 history of the Reformed Churches of the six- 
 teenth and seventeenth centuries, before he goes 
 forward to visit the lands which were once the 
 glory of Christendom. We see so much devo- 
 tedness and earnest zeal in the cause of God, 
 in those who then raised the standard of the 
 Cross in spite of opposition, chains and death, 
 that after our sympathies have been set to such 
 a tone, we cannot easily feel in accordance with 
 common men. So long as we indulge merely 
 fanciful vagaries, we may hope that the succes- 
 
FRENCH PROTESTANTS. 219 
 
 sors of Calvin, and Beza, and Claude, inherit 
 largely of the primeval spirit. But we soon 
 come back to sounder notions ; for we need not 
 cross the Atlantic to learn, that station does 
 not always confer ability upon its occupant, nor 
 the spirit fall with the garments of the inspired 
 prophet. 
 
 Man so acts upon man, and the philosophy 
 of the age upon Christians, that we should not 
 expect a favourable report of the present state 
 of the French churches. 
 
 There is enough in their history, since the re- 
 vocation of the edict of Nantz, to confute Mr 
 Gibbon"'s explanation of the cause of the success 
 of Christianity in the fact of its being persecu- 
 ted. If God be pleased to leave events to their 
 natural consequences, persecution will certainly 
 be ruinous to any body, if it be continued and 
 bloody, so long as suifering and death are the 
 objects of human dread. 
 
220 FRENCH PROTEST ANTS. 
 
 The laws of Louis XIV., of infamous me- 
 mory, as they destroyed all confidence among 
 friends, and all communion between the mini- 
 ster and his people, were effectual, under Louis 
 XV. and Louis XVI., in forcing the Protes- 
 tants from Christian ministrations, and in depri- 
 ving them of the service of enlightened mini- 
 sters. 
 
 Notwithstanding the deserved encomiums 
 iipon the last named, and best of the Bourbon 
 kings, he is to be included in the list of those 
 whose agency has been fearfully active in break- 
 ing down the interests of true religion. I have 
 myself seen, in the vicinity of Nismes, a spot 
 consecrated by many recollections of confes- 
 sors and martyrs, where the Protestants assem- 
 bled so lately as the commencement of the Re- 
 volution for their religious duties. They took 
 refuge, even in the reign of this ill-fated mo- 
 narch, in a quarry, where the rocks were their 
 
 9 
 
FRENCH PROTESTz\NTS. 221 
 
 seats, and heaven their canopy, while the truth 
 was preached by a man who dared take the ha- 
 zard of the penalty then affixed to his courage, 
 of confinement in the galUes, rather than that 
 Christ's flock should not find pasture. 
 
 But it is less my object to explain the causes 
 of the present depressed condition of these 
 churches, than to state the fact, with some brief 
 explanations. 
 
 Their original form of government was strictly 
 Presbyterian, modelled like that of the Church 
 of Scotland, upon the form instituted at Ge- 
 neva, and perfected by Calvin. In the equal 
 rights of the ministers, it protected the body of 
 Christians from an aristocratical superiority ; 
 and in the necessary collision of talent, it fully 
 developed the powers of the members, and left 
 each one to rise or fall, as nature, or his at- 
 tainments in religion, might fix his standard. 
 The introduction of lay deputies into the church 
 courts gave a voice to the mass of the commu- 
 
222 FRENCH PROTESTANTS. 
 
 nity, collected its efficient wisdom, and saved 
 their deliberations from the tincture of sacerdo- 
 tal pride. 
 
 However strange it may seem to all infected 
 with the fashionable prejudice against Presby- 
 terianism, derived for the most part from the 
 grave authority of Hudibras, there is not a 
 more perfectly philosophical organization for the 
 purpose of government ; one which is at the 
 same time so compact and simple, and so com- 
 prehensive and effectual. It provides for a 
 coiKt of delegates from each church, composed 
 equally of ecclesiastical and lay members ; and 
 a right of appeal exists to another and higher 
 body, collected from all parts of the kingdom, 
 who, being removed from provincial prejudices, 
 may judge calmly and surely in all points of 
 
FRENCH PROTESTAXTS. 223 
 
 difference. So long as men rule, it is impossi- 
 ble to make any system perfect : but here ty- 
 ranny cannot easily have place, for each act binds 
 all the members, and laxity will not be permit- 
 ted, unless the body be greatly corrupted, since 
 each member has the right of supervision, and 
 the means of laying an abuse before the legal 
 judges for correction. 
 
 " So Httle is it," says Milton, " that I fear 
 lest any crookedness, any wrinkle, or spot, should 
 be found in Presbyterian government, that if 
 Bodin, the famous French writer, though a Pa- 
 pist, yet affirms that the commonwealth which 
 maintains this discipline will certainly flourish in 
 virtue and piety ; I dare assure myself that every 
 true Protestant will admire the integrity, the 
 uprightness, the divine and gracious purposes 
 thereof, and even for the reason of it so cohe- 
 rent with the doctrine of the gospel, beside the 
 evidence of command in Scripture, will confess 
 it to be the only true church government ; and 
 
Yl^Z't FRENCH PROTESTANTS. 
 
 that, contrary to the whole end and mystery of 
 Christ coming in the flesh, a false appearance 
 of the same is exercised by Prelaty."" * 
 
 This authority will have some weight with us, 
 if we believe what Milton elsewhere says, " that 
 opinion in good men is but knowledge in the 
 makinsr." 
 
 Of course, when the Christians were scatter- 
 ed, this organization fell with the church. Their 
 consistories, or church sessions, as they are call- 
 ed in Scotland, were scarcely filled, and their 
 synods became unknown. Each minister held 
 on his lonely way, without light from a bro- 
 ther's wisdom, or warmth from a brothers sym- 
 pathy. 
 
 Milton's Prose Works, Vol. I. p. 132. 
 
FRENCH PROTESTANTS. 225 
 
 When regular government was destroyed, the 
 power of religion decayed daily ; the sacred fire 
 was not preserved in the household, which was 
 not permitted to burn upon the public altar. 
 
 The Protestant part of the French nation, as 
 they suffered from ecclesiastical, as well as poli- 
 tical oppression, ardently took up the cause of li- 
 berty in the commencement of the Revolution. 
 Many of them became alarmed in its violent pro- 
 gress, and were warmly attached to constitutional 
 monarchy. But in the turmoil of changing go- 
 vernments, and in the terror of desolating pro- 
 scriptions, the minds of most were turned away 
 from any attention to religion ; and when Bona- 
 parte conceded to them a certain share of liberty 
 in this important particular, it was received and 
 used rather as a means of gaining power in the 
 state, than purity and peace in the sight of God. 
 Ignorance of their own professed principles, and 
 the want of zeal for them, it is behoved, com- 
 i' 
 
^520 FRENCH PROTESTANTS. 
 
 bined with nearly equal force to lead them quiet- 
 ly to acquiesce in the organization of their 
 church, as it was effected by Napoleon, who was 
 tyrant in all matters, great and small. They who 
 urge want of power as a plea for omitting to 
 serve the Church of Christ in its most sacred 
 interests, are generally under the influence of 
 indifference or timidity. It might have been 
 impossible to have induced the First Consul Bo- 
 naparte, or the Emperor Napoleon, to have per- 
 mitted the assembling of a Protestant Synod, or 
 any convocation of their scattered members ; yet 
 it seems quite credible that he would have yield- 
 ed to an unanimous movement in resistance of 
 so debasing a rule as he gave them for forming 
 their Consistories. This law, which still conti- 
 nues in full action, is to be considered as the 
 most ruinous cause of their present sad condi- 
 tion. It provides, that in whatever department 
 the Protestants amount to six thousand, they 
 
FRENCH PUOTESTANTS. 227 
 
 shall have a right to a Consistory ; but that those 
 shall be elders in the church who rate the high- 
 est upon the tax list of the civil officers ; so that 
 oftentimes, may we not say usually, the mini- 
 ster is forced to act in union with those, who far 
 from being a help, are a hindrance to him. I 
 could now name the church in the south of 
 France, where the elders, all except one, cried 
 out against the fanatical zeal of their pastor, 
 who wished to hold two public services on the 
 Lord's day, and all, except one, were usually 
 absent in the afternoon. If we believe Christ's 
 word, that " not many wise or noble are called," 
 and that " to the poor the gospel is preached," 
 we must be contented to have church officers 
 taken from the number of those who excel, not 
 in wealth, but in piety ; and select them for their 
 spiritual qualifications, and not for their rent- 
 roll. 
 
 So long as this rule continues, it is vain to 
 
S28 FRENCH PROTESTANTS. 
 
 expect vital religion to abound. The Protes- 
 tant churches must ever remain as they are now 
 for the most part — mere shells to cover formal 
 devotion, or positive infidelity ; or as grave- 
 stones to mark the burial places of their fathers. 
 It is a dear price to pay for government pro- 
 tection, when the civil authority regulates the 
 internal jurisdiction of a spiritual community. 
 But it was necessary to give some equivalent for 
 the liberality of this same government, in render- 
 ing back part of what it exacted in the shape of 
 taxes, in the form of a salary to the minister of 
 religion. Although the Protestants, as in the 
 department du Gard, while they are one-third 
 only of the popvdation, furnish two-thirds of the 
 revenue; yet, instead of complaining of any law, 
 they are expected to be very grateful that their 
 minister of religion, as well as the Catholic, re- 
 ceives his nourishment — traitement — from royal 
 bounty. 
 
FRENCH PROTESTANTS. £29 
 
 To treat the subject seriously, here is another 
 bane to religious prosperity. It will seem strange 
 to those who calculate according to worldly prin- 
 ciples, that any one should suppose that when 
 the state endows religion, it lowers her influ- 
 ence. And yet one need not be a philosopher 
 to see that this degrades her heavenly character, 
 and takes off" from the prevailing sentiment of 
 her spiritual power, and brings her into the 
 lower orbit of earthly influences. So long as we 
 assert the existence of a future world, and spiri- 
 tual rewards and penalties, it is well to show 
 that the church stands not by the power of man. 
 Besides, the civil rulers who pay, are very apt 
 to exercise the right of choosing their servants, 
 and are not likely to select those who can feed 
 Christ's people with knowledge and love. 
 
 But further, who does not know how much 
 we are bound together by mutual dependence ; 
 how warmly that man will love his flock who 
 knows that they have selected him for their 
 
230 FRENCH PROTESTANTS. 
 
 guide, and cast themselves on liis spiritual ser- 
 vices ; how kindly they will cherish a pastor, who 
 know that he depends solely upon them ; how 
 much a body of people may be bound together 
 by this one tie, which, like a single principle in 
 nature, may connect the children of one Father 
 in Heaven. 
 
 It is true, that this question about permanent 
 provision for religious establishments runs over 
 a great field, and opens a wide space for contro- 
 versy. But it would seem that if we reason sim- 
 ply upon philosophical grounds, we may deny 
 its utility ; and if we decide upon it by Scripture, 
 we shall find a peremptory authority upon the 
 civil magistrate to remain within the sphere of 
 his civil duties. In the present state of the 
 world, he will have employment enough, if he 
 bear not the sword in vain, without seeking, by 
 gorgeous and costly establishments, to bear up 
 the ark of the Lord. Whether the donation be 
 rich enough to raise a popedom, or small enough 
 
FKKNCH rUOTESTANTS. !^31 
 
 to make the people neglect all care of their mi- 
 nister ; whether it be given in the most obnoxi- 
 ous form of tithes, as in England, or in the far 
 better mode of valued tiends, as in Scotland, 
 or fixed pecuniary provision, as in France, these 
 are all modifications of the same questionable 
 principle, and seem to come under the reproach 
 which Dante bestows upon Constantine : — 
 
 Ahi Costantin, di quanto mal fu matre 
 Non la tua conversion, ma quella dote, 
 Che da te prese il prime ricco patre ! 
 
 Inferno. Canto XIX. aljino. 
 
 That the protection of religion is sufficient, 
 without an exclusive establishment, the United 
 States of America will long show. There re- 
 ligion appears disembarrassed of earthly robes, 
 and resplendent in heavenly graces ; her mini- 
 sters appear simple to our outward vision, but 
 are clothed with the best gifts of faith and cha- 
 rity. 
 
SSJJSJ FRENCH PROTESTANTS. 
 
 Upon the ground that no foreigner has a 
 right to a provision from the national purse, all 
 Protestant ministers, since the kingdom has 
 been restored to its ancient limits, are required 
 to be French citizens, and to have pursued their 
 education at the Protestant College at IVIontau- 
 ban. This cuts off the supply which used to 
 be furnished from the Swiss universities. In the 
 present state of Geneva, however, the home-bred 
 are likely to be better than the imported. As Dr 
 Encontre is now Dean of the Faculty at Mon- 
 tauban, we may hope that this college will re- 
 vive. And it is well that the Arian and Socinian 
 professors at Geneva should not have an occa- 
 sion of sending their errors out of their own re- 
 gion. They who detest all Confessions of Faith, 
 and who have cut themselves off from commu- 
 nion with the Protestant world, ought to be shut 
 up, a petty schism at home, to lay their inter- 
 dicts there, as they have done, upon all who 
 
FRENCH PROTESTANTS. 233 
 
 dare profess Calvin's doctrine in the city which 
 his name has signaUzed. 
 
 The French Protestant Church is avowedly 
 Calvinistic in doctrine as in government. — 
 Would that the spirit of Calvin might descend, 
 in this day of general apostacy, upon those who 
 now think lightly of him and of his Lord ! 
 
 The example which Bonaparte set in his ec- 
 clesiastical tyranny over his three millions of 
 Protestant subjects, has been generally followed 
 by the legitimate sovereigns of continental Eu- 
 rope. The King of Prussia seems resolved to 
 force all his subjects into a union which has in- 
 difference to all religion for its basis ; and his 
 Highness of Holland is anxious to do the same. 
 
 Since the family of Nassau have got the re- 
 public of Holland converted into a kingdom by 
 the grace of the Council of Sovereigns at Vien- 
 na, they do double dishonour to their lineage, 
 by seeking to lord it in church as in state. They 
 have come to their authority, and are held in 
 
234 FRENCH PROTESTANTS. 
 
 historical remembrance for their eminent ser- 
 vices in opposing the tyranny of Spain and 
 Rome; and why should they now attempt to 
 wield the ecclesiastical arms of a spiritual supre- 
 macy? Yet this William I., King of the Nether- 
 lands, has re-organized the Church of Holland, 
 which was Presbyterian, like most of the other 
 Protestant churches of thecontinent; and having 
 appointed, by his sovereign selection, a Synod, 
 has given a constitution which is a masterpiece 
 of usurpation upon Christian liberty. A single 
 specimen will show the size of this idol, which 
 has not only the foot, but the force of Hercules. 
 No minister can be settled over any congrega- 
 tion, even after he has finished his studies un- 
 der the regular professors of theology, and been 
 received according to the order of universities 
 and classes, until the King be pleased to add 
 his sign manual to the call from the Church. 
 So little is the Church of Holland, that body oi 
 which Christ is the head! If this be Protestant 
 
FIIENCH PKOTESTANTS. 235 
 
 freedom, it will hereafter not be ecasy to define 
 the tyranny of Papal Rome. 
 
 The French Protestants, even now, have lit- 
 tle to boast of ; they can hold no assemblies out 
 of the limits of their churchy without special au- 
 thority, and were obliged to obtain permission 
 of the civil power before they called a meeting 
 to organize a Bible Society. No assemblages 
 for religious purposes, of more than twenty per- 
 sons, are permitted by the Napoleon code, ex- 
 cept such as are organized under special provi- 
 sions. It is in vain to expect that a material 
 change can take place, or that much spirit can 
 be introduced into the general mass, while there 
 is no freedom for ministers of the gospel. The 
 two great divisions of Louis Eighteenth's sub- 
 jects are nominally equal ; but the government 
 
236 FRENCH PROTESTANTS. 
 
 sends Catholic missionaries throughout France, 
 while it was vigilant enough to put down by 
 force, a small collection of Protestants at Or- 
 leans, who were not shielded by the Consistory. 
 The Catholics are now sedulously attentive 
 to the revival of their opinions, and have shown 
 their wisdom in the selection of their means. 
 Convinced that irreligion is too deeply rooted in 
 the minds of the present generation to be eradi- 
 cated, they attend almost exclusively to the chil- 
 dren ; and on each Sunday afternoon, multi- 
 tudes are collected in all the parish churches in 
 Paris, and throughout the departments, to be 
 taught their catechism and rehgious duties. 
 It is an affecting commentary upon the fact 
 that there is nothing so little consoUng, nothing 
 so hopeless as infidelity, that parents who dis- 
 regard all these things for themselves, and who 
 scarcely beheve that the soul is immortal, are 
 yet wiUing and anxious that their children 
 should have access to a spring of life and joy, 
 
FKENCH I'ROTESTANTS. 237 
 
 which, if inefficacious for the future world, is 
 yet most grateful in this. The poisoned gar- 
 ment upon too many among themselves has so 
 far taken effect, that they have fallen into a 
 death-like insensibility ; but they seem wilhng 
 that it should sink with the shreds of their mor- 
 tality, into the world of oblivion. If they can- 
 not point towards heaven, with the expectation 
 of a future happy abode there, they think the 
 dreams of priests better than no visions of futu- 
 rity. While they can only contemplate them- 
 selves as about to become clods of the valley, 
 they wish their offspring to ascend the mount 
 of hope, and look at the fields beyond, though 
 they account them as unreal, as the scenes which 
 fancy paints in the mist that floats in the regions 
 of air. 
 
 Thus one generation discerns the folly of cor- 
 rupt rehgion, and casts itself into the extreme 
 of Atheism : another discerns the horrible dis- 
 ruption of all tics, civil and social, and the hope- 
 
238 FKENCH PROTESTANTS. 
 
 less gloom where God is not recognized, and it 
 vibrates back again to the errors of its predeces- 
 sor. If the gospel, in its simplicity, could even 
 now be freely preached to the French nation, and 
 human wretchedness exposed, as the Scripture 
 declares it ; — the remedy for human guilt set 
 forth as it is provided, through divine mercy, in 
 the cross of Christ ; I believe we should see such 
 effects as followed the sounding of the trumpets 
 for the year of Jubilee, when the tribes of the 
 Lord flocked to His holy Temple. It is not sup- 
 posed that any merely human causes can unite 
 to make a nation truly religious. But we know 
 that the same Saviour who saw the fields of Ju- 
 dea ripe for the harvest, is present now with the 
 ministers of his truth ; and if they, by his Pro- 
 vidence, had access to the ears, we may believe 
 that His spirit would fall upon the hearts of 
 thousands, as it were, in a day- 
 
 The French Protestants have abundance of 
 the sectarian spirit, but little or none of the pro- 
 
FRENCH PROTESTANTS. 239 
 
 selytingzeal of the Catholics ; and they do Httle 
 more than stand their ground in the present 
 eventful times. It is in spite of the inert force 
 of the mass, that some few more zealous among 
 the pastors and people, establish Sunday schools 
 and tract societies. That immense machinery 
 of benevolent associations organized by Chris- 
 tian wisdom, and worked by pious zeal to such 
 mighty effect, in Great Britain, and in the Uni- 
 ted States, is but beginning to be heard of in 
 France. Yet those who have observed the pro- 
 gress of events for the last fifteen years, may 
 hope for wonders in the next quarter of a cen- 
 tury. 
 
 But while truth forces me to draw so bad a 
 picture of a church, whose very relics 1 love, it 
 must not be imagined that there are no points 
 of light amidst the general gloom. I have seen 
 a pastor, such as Cowper might describe, and 
 Paul praise, one who preaches, not human me- 
 rit, nor human philosophy, but such doctrines 
 
240 FRENCH PROTESTANTS. 
 
 as come from God ; who sets forth faith in 
 Christ as the only means of securing the divine 
 favour, and the influence of the spirit of trutli 
 as the only source of sanctification ; who stands 
 fast by the article — stantis et cadentis ecclesia' 
 — our free and fiill justification by the righteous- 
 ness of Christ, without our own works ;— and 
 at the same time enforces the obligation of that 
 holiness, without which no man shall see the 
 Lord. I have been a spectator of his evangeli- 
 cal labours, and have heard his zealous prayers ; 
 and now know of noble fruits of his unsparing 
 exertions. I need not describe the sympathy 
 with which I have listened to the history of his 
 private sorrows, arising from the absence of all 
 co-operation from those who were sworn as fel- 
 low-soldiers into the same service ; for he finds 
 support in God, and sympathy in Jesus Christ, 
 and encouragement from the land of our fathers. 
 He has distributed one hundred and twenty 
 thousand tracts in one year; — his Sunday schools 
 
FRENCH PaOTESTANTS. 341 
 
 flourish ; he confines not his preaching to cities, 
 but villages, and fields, and the mountains of the 
 Cevennes, the ancient refuges of God's persecu- 
 ted professors, witness the wide sphere of his en- 
 ergies ; — exertions lightly esteemed on earth, but 
 known to be glorious in heaven. 
 
 While we weep that he has so little aid from 
 earthly friends, we should pray for many more 
 such labourers from the Lord of the harvest. 
 
[ 242 
 
 WATERLOO. 
 
 The scenery around Brussels, and indeed from 
 Maestriclit to Ostend, is more like that of Eng- 
 land, than any other part of the continent. The 
 surface is delightfully broken into hill and dcile, 
 and is sufficiently well wooded and watered to 
 give variety to the swelling landscape. 
 
 In travelling from Aix-la-Chapelle to Brus- 
 sels, each step reminds us that we are passing 
 over thebattle-groundofEvu'ope, where the sove- 
 reigns of Germany and Spain, as well as of Eng- 
 land and France, have met to decide their quar- 
 rels by the strong argument of the sword. From 
 the period of the wars of the League to those of 
 Napoleon, has this ill-fated country been the 
 spot where many battles have been fought, and 
 blood profusely spilled in conflicts, in which both 
 
Av.sTF.r.T.oo. 943 
 
 victory and defeat, it is to be feared, were mur- 
 der. For that is nothing better which consigns 
 to untimely death, thousands of men, upon the 
 suggestion of passion, or from the lust of power. 
 
 It is an important point gained, when our 
 moral feelings become so strong as to lead us to 
 reprobate the practice of war in whatever shape 
 it appear ; so that even when we stand upon the 
 defensive, w^e weep over a victory, as over a ca- 
 pital punishment, necessary, but awful. 
 
 Our own age has seen the armies of Europe 
 again drawn out in the Low Countries ; and the 
 sound of the shock of hundreds of thousands of 
 men in arms has gone forth to the ends of the 
 earth. It is among the wonders of this century, 
 that the works which have been originated by 
 the most subhme spirit of benevolence, and those 
 which have been excited by the most demonia- 
 cal fury, have appeared at the same period ; — 
 even as we sometimes hear the thunder from the 
 heavens, and see the rapid ravages of the light 
 
244 WATERLOO. 
 
 ning in the fairest summer day. At the very 
 time when a general system of instruction has 
 been devised for the people — a general desire 
 evinced to mehorate the condition of the lowest 
 class — a general freedom of opinion propagated, 
 and when ancient abuses and prejudices seem to 
 relax their hold upon men's minds ; — at such 
 a time we have beheld nations, wielded as play- 
 things in the hands of a tyrant, and the will 
 of millions bow to his supreme volition. — This 
 enlightened age has seen how difficult it is to 
 get men free from the fatuity of trusting all to 
 one man ; since even the defeats in Russia, 
 the refusal of peace at Chatillon, the arrogance 
 upon the Champ de Mai, did not prevent the 
 flower of France from flocking to the standard 
 of Bonaparte, to stand or fall with him at Wa- 
 terloo. 
 
 I was anxious to visit this ever memorable 
 and sublimely decisive field, where the enemy 
 of the liberties of mankind closed his destruc- 
 
WATEKLOO. 245 
 
 tive career ; when the Emperor of the French, 
 and King of Italy, and Protector of the Confe- 
 deration of the Rhine, was transformed into the 
 captive of St Helena. I found it bearing but 
 few marks of the desolation of war, though but 
 three years had passed away since it was literal- 
 ly the field of blood. The hand of cultivation 
 had erased all marks of violence from the face 
 of nature, and made this plain again rich and 
 beautiful. 
 
 We were fortunate in our guide, who was 
 the same who attended Bonaparte during the 
 whole period of this fearful combat. He led us 
 over the field in various directions, and also to 
 the farm-house of La Haye, described the posi- 
 tions of the several corps, and marked out the 
 spots where the action had been the most severe. 
 The slight eminence behind which Wellington 
 was posted, gave him a great advantage in his 
 evolutions ; and the guide reports that Marshal 
 Ney declared to Bonaparte, that it was impossi- 
 
246 WATEULOO. 
 
 ble to gain a victory, unless he were drawn from 
 that position. 
 
 But I have, perhaps, reason to be ashamed 
 to confess, that all the details of the action inte- 
 rested me far less than his description of the 
 Emperor's conduct upon the defeat of tlie Im- 
 perial Guard, when he turned and fled from the 
 field. Napoleon with apparent coolness simply 
 uttered the exclamation, " Ccstjini! allons T 
 " It is ended ! let us go !"" The most fearful 
 tragedy that the world ever saw acted had come 
 to its denouement ; and he who had been both 
 machinitit to plan, and manager to exhibit this 
 spectacle of carnage and woe, looked upon the 
 scene without pity, and left it to provide for 
 his personal safety, — left it without remorse ! 
 He had hurried myriads to their last account, — 
 and seemed never to reflect whether that con- 
 sciousness might not exist in a separate state, — 
 which had left their organized remains. 
 
 Such is man as an individual, when destitute 
 
WATERLOO. 247 
 
 of the sentiment of responsibility to his Crea- 
 tor, and of his relation to an vmseen world : dri- 
 ven by the varying currents of passion or inte- 
 rest, and capable of any enormity. AVhat then 
 must a mass of men be who have cast off the 
 fear of God ? 
 
 We are here led to recall the striking and 
 profound observation of Madame de Stael con- 
 cerning the httle agency that individual cha- 
 racter has in bringing about great revolutions. 
 That crisis in the French Revolution, she says, 
 which demanded a Robespierre, would have 
 made another, if he had never lived who bore 
 that execrable name. Less horrible consequen- 
 ces than the assassinations upon the Place de 
 Greve were not to be expected, when rulers and 
 people had divested themselves of all sense of 
 religion. Little reverence or affection for our 
 fellow-creatures does that system inculcate, which 
 would degrade men into animals to be annihila- 
 ted by death. There is nothing unbending but 
 
248 WATERLOO. 
 
 moral principle ; the best natural feelings of be- 
 nevolence cannot protect us from the risk of be- 
 coming cruel and odious tyrants. Nothing but 
 the sense of rehgion universally diffused, and 
 unceasingly efficient, saved the revolution in the 
 United States of America from being polluted 
 with all the fearful atrocities incident to civil 
 war. 
 
 While, then, we deplore the character of the 
 great warrior and wicked man who -led the le- 
 gions of France, and sometimes indulge our- 
 selves in conjecturing how different would have 
 been the present state of Europe, had he been 
 wise and good ; yet we must learn this lesson 
 of practical wisdom, that the head has far less 
 influence upon the body than was wont to be 
 imagined in old time, or than perhaps it really 
 had in old time ; that the mass of a nation will 
 have a ruler whose feelings agree in the main 
 with their own ; and that a small portion of prin- 
 ciple and benevolence, which as leaven is diffu- 
 
WATERLOO. 249 
 
 sed through a v/hole community, is mucli to be 
 preferred to a very large share of the same most 
 desirable qualities confined to a privileged class, 
 or to single men of the highest rank and fortune. 
 We have been so much accustomed to look at 
 the great things of life, that we vastly under- 
 rate the power of the minute parts in the ma- 
 chinery of society, and it is time to alter our 
 scale of judgment and course of observation. 
 The astronomer, who is studying the mighty 
 wisdom and power displayed in fixing the orbits 
 of the planets, counts it an instance of great con- 
 descension in the Creator, (as il is in truth) 
 that He regulates the breathing of an insect ; 
 but these objects so widely diverse, are great or 
 small only as compared by the philosopher, and 
 he himself, in common with the objects of his 
 observation, forms a part of one system, moved 
 by one Agent. If we would imitate the Su- 
 preme Example of benevolence, we must consi- 
 der no subject too humble for our attention, and 
 
250 WATERLOO. 
 
 especially no fellow-man too unworthy to have 
 his character investigated, nor too diseased for 
 us to seek his cure. 
 
 The action of ruler upon people, and people 
 upon ruler, though difficult to trace and not al- 
 ways immediate, is yet distinctly to be perceived 
 in the great lines of history, and is more pecu- 
 liarly observable in the character of Bonaparte, 
 who made himself the idol of his soldiery, and 
 the popular despot of his empire, by possessing 
 the rare talent, during the earlier part of his 
 reign, of discovering in season how much his 
 subjects would endure, and what must be the 
 time and the limit of his usurpations. 
 
 How much of meanness is there in all human 
 grandeur ! While nations are beholding this one 
 man, and reflecting upon the mighty emotions 
 which swell in his bosom, the hero himself takes 
 refuge in insensibility. Napoleon insensible af- 
 ter the battle of Waterloo ! 
 
 The saying attributed to Wellington is great 
 
WATERLOO. 251 
 
 and pathetic, — " That he knew nothing so sad 
 as a battle gained, except a battle lost."" AVho 
 that regards sviffering humanity, will not pray 
 that our age may not be cursed with such ano- 
 ther spectacle ; that wisdom and peace may at 
 last reign in either hemisphere, and men culti- 
 vate only those dispositions which are required 
 by our religion, and which are alone consistent 
 with our present and future happiness. 
 
 It is vain to hope for this resvilt from an al- 
 liance of sovereigns, who propose to keep the 
 peace among themselves at the expense of light- 
 ing up the torch of discord at the lireside of each 
 of their subjects. But we may expect it from the 
 spreading influence of truth among the people, 
 when their consciences shall become active be- 
 cause their understandings are enlightened ; for 
 then devastation and murder, even when sanc- 
 tioned by organized bodies, and with the appa- 
 ratus of law, will apjiear atrocious crimes. 
 
252 WATERLOO. 
 
 But this impression must come in some de- 
 gree simultaneously ; for it is absurd to imagine 
 such a Utopia as a nation without defensive ar- 
 mour in the midst of modern Europe. Yet the 
 philanthropist may, upon a sure calculation, in- 
 dulge the hope that not many centuries hence 
 the face of society shall be changed, the princi- 
 ples of government reformed, and war driven 
 back, as an accursed daemon, to the infernal 
 caverns whence it first escaped. 
 
 It struck my imagination much that the bat- 
 tle of Waterloo should have been fought upon 
 a Sunday. What a different scene for the 
 Scotch Greys and English infantry, from that 
 which at that very hour was exhibited by their 
 relatives ; when over England and Scotland each 
 church bell had drawn together its worshippers ! 
 While many a mother's heart was sending up- 
 ward a prayer for her son's preservation, per- 
 haps that son was gasping in agony. 
 
WATERLOO. 253 
 
 Yet even at such a period, the lessons of his 
 early days might give him consolation ; and the 
 maternal prayer might prepare the heart to sup- 
 port maternal anguish. It is religion alone which 
 is of universal application, both as stimulant and 
 lenitive, as it is the varied heritage of man to 
 labour or endure. But we know that many thou- 
 sands rushed into this fight, even of those who 
 had been instructed in our own religious princi- 
 ples, without leisure for one serious thought ; 
 and that some officers were killed in their ball- 
 dresses. They made the leap into the gulph 
 which divides two worlds, the present from the 
 immutable state, without one parting prayer or 
 one note of preparation ! 
 
 As I looked over this field, now green with 
 growing corn, I could mark with my eye spots 
 where the most desperate carnage had been, 
 marked out by the verdure of the wheat. The 
 bodies had been heaped together, and scarcely 
 
254 
 
 WATERLOO. 
 
 more than covered it. And so enriched is the 
 soil, that in these spots the grain never ripens ; 
 it grows rank and green to the end of the har- 
 vest. This touching memorial, which endures 
 when the thousand groans have expired, and 
 when the stain of human blood has faded from 
 the gromid, still seems to cry to Heaven that 
 there is awful guilt somewhere, and a terrific 
 reckoning for those who had caused destruction 
 which the earth would not conceal. These hil- 
 locks of superabundant vegetation, as the wind 
 rustled through the corn, seemed the most affect- 
 ing monuments which nature could devise, and 
 gave a melancholy animation to this plain of 
 death. 
 
 When we attempt to measure the mass of suf- 
 fering which was here inflicted, and to number 
 the individuals that have fallen, considering that 
 each who suffered was our fellow man, we are 
 overwhelmed with the agonizing calculation. 
 
VVATKRLOO. 255 
 
 and retire from tlie field which has been the 
 scene of our reflections, with the simple concen- 
 trated feeling ; — these armies once lived, breath-i 
 ed, and felt like us, and the time is at hand 
 when we shall be like them. 
 
[ 256 ] 
 
 CEMETERY OF PERE LA CHAISE. 
 
 The cemetery of Pere la Chaise is situated on 
 an eminence at the eastern extremity of Paris. 
 It commands a very extensive prospect, embra- 
 cing a great part of the city, and all its most 
 considerable edifices ; and much of the surround- 
 ing country, including the fortress of Vincennes 
 and the heights of IMontmartre. It is the prin- 
 cipal burial place, particularly of strangers, and 
 is laid out with great regularity and beauty. 
 The variety and elegance of the monuments, 
 the care with which they are all preserved, but 
 especially the recollections connected with the 
 memory of those whose dust rests below, con- 
 tinually attract multitudes of visitors. Many 
 
CEMETERY OF TEKE LA CHAISE. 257 
 
 come from better motives than curiosity, for 
 some family is frequently seen ascending its 
 eminences to weep at the tomb of a parent. 
 Many are attracted by friendship, for they ac- 
 company the last remains of one whom they 
 have loved ; and many are borne thither by an 
 irresistible necessity in the cold arms of death. 
 Scarcely an hour passes in which one hearse does 
 not follow another, and add its burden to the 
 crowded assembly. 
 
 It was on an occasion affectingly interesting 
 that I once entered within these walls to leave 
 there a body, which I had seen animated by an 
 immortal spirit, now flown to its eternal dwelling 
 place. The body I had seen racked with pain, 
 and had listened to the words of a spirit wrung 
 with anguish. I saw that spirit, prepared by 
 faith for its long invisible journey, and heard 
 the wife say, that she was willing to go, since 
 such was the will of God ; and that she could 
 
 R 
 
SJ5» CEMETERY OF TERE LA CHAISE. 
 
 even rejoice in it, since her Saviour would guard 
 her, and could remunerate her husband for the 
 loss with spiritual consolations. I heard the 
 mother exult in the affirmation, that " a Father 
 of the fatherless is God in his holy habitation." 
 I heard the last sounds that passed her lips, and 
 saw the last motion that quivered on them. 
 
 No relative was present when the body of the 
 mother was deposited upon the brow of the hill 
 beside that of her only son. Duty and friend- 
 ship alike led me to join the few, who, stran- 
 gers in a foreign country, offered that last token 
 of regard, which failed not to remind them how 
 far they were from home ; — yet how near per- 
 haps their last abode. 
 
 After the reading of a part of the burial ser- 
 vice of the Church of England, and before the 
 prayers, the minister spoke, as nearly as I can 
 remember, in the following words : — 
 
 " We are assembled, my friends, to render 
 
CJEMETKEY OF PEUE LA CHAISE. 259 
 
 the last service which human suffering demands 
 from human sympathy. It is a melancholy oc- 
 casion ; and we are permitted to indulge the 
 feelings of nature, since Jesus himself wept at 
 the grave of a friend. 
 
 " It is a melancholy occasion, for we commit 
 to the cold earth a person whom we have seen 
 animated with life, and conscious of all the warm 
 attachments of friend, and wife, and mother. If 
 we indulge .only the feelings of nature, we may 
 weep ourselves into agony, to think of features 
 given up to corruption which have bloomed in 
 health and beauty, and that body covered to be 
 seen no more. If we venture to interrupt the 
 silence of the tomb witli the voice of lamenta- 
 tion, it may be in unmingled anguish, for Na- 
 ture beholds here only decay and horror. Af- 
 fection may make us linger upon a spot whence 
 Hope has fled ; but our tears will not benefit 
 the departed, nor melt into pity that King of 
 
260 CEiMETEBY OF PEKE LA CHAISE. 
 
 Terrors, who has torn away a friend, and is ad- 
 vancing to seize us. 
 
 " But I come not to speak of the terrors in 
 which he arrays himself, nor to describe what 
 we all feel ; but standing here on ground where 
 heseeras aconqueror, I will speak of One mightier 
 than he, even Jesus, ' that delivereth us from ■ 
 the wrath to come ;' ' who has conquered death 
 and him that had the power of it ;"" and opened 
 a secure path to eternal glory. When we had 
 fallen by our sins, salvation was provided by the 
 death of the Son of God ; so that ' now who- 
 soever believeth shall not perish, but have ever- 
 lasting life.' We sorrow, then, in hope, since 
 we have a sure word of promise, that whosoever 
 will receive the great salvation, having repent- 
 ed him of all his sins, ' though he die, yet shall 
 he live.' And she whom we lament, embraced 
 with all her heart this proffer of mercy. She 
 was strengthened to resist the fear of death, 
 
CEMETERY OF PERE LA CHAISE. 261 
 
 knowing that the Saviour liveth. She has re- 
 ceived the promise ; she has entered into rest. 
 " The words, then, which our Lord spoke to 
 the daughters of Jerusalem, we may hear ad- 
 dressed to us, as if they proceeded from this 
 grave, — ' Weep not for me, but weep for your- 
 selves."* Yes ! we should not weep for her, who 
 is in that land of joy, but for ourselves, who are 
 in this world of sorrow ; not for her, who is freed 
 from sin, but for ourselves, who are enthralled 
 by temptation ; not for her, who is emancipated 
 from all earthly shackles, but for ourselves, who 
 are bound in this body of death ; not for her, 
 who has passed through the dark valley, but for 
 ourselves, who fear that journey. — ' Where I 
 am, there shall also my servant be,' says Jesus 
 the Redeemer. Let us rejoice our hearts, then, 
 in the thought, that she is in the holy Mount, 
 in the heavenly Zion, amidst the innumerable 
 company of the spirits of the just made perfect ; 
 of holy angels ; — in the presence of God, the 
 
262 CEMETERY 0¥ PERE LA CHAISE. 
 
 Judge of all, and of Jesus, tlie Mediator of the 
 new covenant ! Who can describe what plea- 
 sure flows through the city of God ! 
 
 " But if we will have for ourselves the same 
 hope, we must have like precious faith : And 
 we know not how soon we may need all its con- 
 solations. The generations of our fathers wait 
 for us ; the wind has passed over them, and they 
 are gone ; and we shall not long have this co- 
 vering of flesh to prevent the wind from bear- 
 ing us away to keep them company. 
 
 "And yet I need no spirit of prophecy, and 
 no peculiar insight into futurity, to know that 
 many of you who novv' hear me, will go from 
 this grave thoughtless of your eternal interests, 
 and of reconciliation with God ; that you will 
 live as unconcerned about the mediation of Je- 
 sus Christ, as if you were not sinners ; and as 
 unrepentant, as if the Truth in person had not 
 said, 'Except ye repent, ye shall all perish.' 
 
CEMETERY OF PERE LA CHAISE. 263 
 
 You will go from this grave, and plunge again 
 intothebusiness of the world and its dissipations, 
 and perhaps into its most criminal pleasures, 
 as if Death might not instantly seize you, and 
 bear you away to the judgment of God. Though 
 we dwell not in our native land, and though 
 our habitation be far from the sepulchres of our 
 fathers, yet even hence we, like the friend we 
 now mourn, may be called to that judgment, 
 and in this land of strangers be forced to make 
 up our final account. There is earth enough 
 here to cover us, and Death may be at hand, 
 though we hear not his footsteps. There is but 
 one security, which is a heart-felt reception of 
 the Son of God, and practical conformity to his 
 words. 
 
 " There is one sin which excludes for ever 
 from mercy, and shuts up in the prison without 
 hope. The Redeemer himself hath said, ' He 
 that beheveth not, shall be damned.' By the 
 terror and mercy of the Lord, be entreated now 
 
264 CEMETERY OF PERE LA CHAISE. 
 
 to accept his salvation. We all go alone into 
 the invisible -world, and each for himself sus- 
 tains the scrutiny of the Eternal. If the angel 
 of desolation, -nith the pestilence in his train, 
 were to pass over yonder busy and populous city, 
 and sweep away hundreds of thousands in a mo- 
 ment, not one of them should hasten past the 
 throne of God without this sentence. ' "\^''atch, 
 therefore, and pray, for in such an hour as ye 
 think not, the Son of ]Man cometh." ■" 
 
 The prayers of the funeral service in conclu- 
 sion fell with deep impression upon my heart. 
 As our little company separated upon the hill- 
 side, the heavens were overclouded, the spires 
 and domes of Paris were just visible in the dusky 
 horizon of the evening, while one long streak 
 
cemp:tery of pere la chaise. xgo 
 
 of light hung along the west, like a banner in 
 the breeze. It changed from red to yellow, then 
 to grey, and was soon lost in darkness. So fades 
 not the light of immortality which the Gospel 
 sheds upon our tomb. 
 
 Edinburgh : 
 Priiited by James Ballarityne and Co. 
 
UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA LIBRARY 
 BERKELEY 
 
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