strongly and conspicuously drawn for future ages. The French revolution has been, as it were, the breaking up of the abyss, and from our ark of liberty which rides securely upon the waters, we behold every thing around us laid waste by the deluge. Of all those countries over which the flood has taken its appointed course, Spain and Portugal hold out the most important and interesting matter for contemplation, whether we look back into their history to gather wisdom from the past, or forward into their future state for consolation and hope. Our present business is with the past. In the two kingdoms of the Peninsula, despotism and intolerance have been carried to the fullest extent; the warmest advocates of either could not possibly require a more complete experiment than has been made of both. And let it not be lightly supposed, that these systems can have no advocates: for as it is daily seen that no quackery, whether physical or spiritual, is too gross to find believers, so there is no system of political and religious government, how pernicious soever, which may not have its partizans; so easily are the opinions of men perverted by their prejudices, their passions, their interests, and their vices. Despotism and intolerance have subverted the two kingdoms of the Peninsula. Of the first of these evils we are in no danger, though it has never wanted partizans in any country when the tide sets that way; and how near a nation may be to the yoke when it thinks itself farthest from it, we learn from the history of our own commonwealth, and see at this hour in the example of France. But the constitution of our government bears this resemblance to that of the Romish church, that its forms cannot exist without in some degree keeping its spirit alive, so wisely have both been constructed. From the other evil we are not altogether so secure. Intolerance is closely connected with those religious opinions which of late years have been gaining ground among us with fearful progression; and persecution would be as necessary and inevitable a consequence of their ascendancy as it has been of the Romish faith, because upon either system it equally becomes a duty,--a conclusion which (were this the place for proving it) would operate as a reductio ad absurdum against both. It may not therefore be a useless task, and may perhaps be found an interesting one, to trace the rise, progress, and completion of that great experiment of intolerance which we have seen completed; and we do it the more willingly because we are in possession of many rare and curious documents, manuscript as well as printed, upon the subject. The Spanish annals are stained with the first appeal against heresy to the secular power, and the first blood shed with the forms of law in a persecution of christians against christians. Priscillian, the protomartyr for the freedom of religious opinion, was a Spaniard. St. St. Martin of Tours strenuously opposed this fatal precedent, and severely condemned and lamented it when his opposition had proved unavailing; a conduct which is more to his honour than the whole catalogue of his miracles. What were the opinions of Priscillian it is not necessary here to inquire, and probably is not pos sible to discover, because there remain no other accounts of him than what his enemies have transmitted to us. It is, however, admitted that he was a man of great talents, powerful eloquence, and of such austere habits as were altogether incompatible with the licentiousness imputed to him. It is equally certain that his chief persecutor was infamous for his dissolute life, though one of the most respectable and praiseworthy of the Spanish historians carefully abstains from noticing this. That Priscillian was an enthusiast cannot be doubted, and like other enthusiasts it may readily be believed, that his piety was debased by some absurdities. The great historian of heresy tells us, that he first of any christian sectary borrowed from the gnostics the notion that the different parts of the human body are governed by the signs of the zodiac; if so, the man in the almanack whom we are old enough to remember there, is a relic of Priscillianism. The Arian controversy was carried on longer and with more fury in Spain than in any other part of christendom. Both parties were equally wrong in the means to which they resorted, and both parties seem to have been equally absurd in their practices. About the close of the sixth century an Arian saint-aspirant came over from Africa to Spain, on a pilgrimage to the sepulchre of St. Eulalia in Merida. His especial anxiety was, that he should never set eyes on woman, nor ever let woman set eyes on him; and for this reason a monk always went before him to clear the way. One lady in Merida of Peeping Tom's family, prevailed upon the deacon to conceal her in the church, and thus contrived to see him: when he heard what had happened, he prostrated himself upon the ground, and in that posture groaned and bewailed himself as if the heaviest calamity had befallen him. King Leuvigildo, deceived by this mountebank, enabled him and his monks (for he was an abbot) to settle themselves in Spain, supplied them regularly with all they wanted, and thought himself well repaid by the benefit of his prayers. In mummery and intolerance there was little difference. between the contending factions, for so they may properly be called, but the catholics had infinitely the advantage in address; they had learnt Italian intrigue, and it is but too evident, that in the course of the struggle, they did not scruple to avail themselves of the foulest resources of Italian policy. One miracle, which implies considerable preparation and ingenuity, they practised in more than one place. On Holy Thursday, the bishop, clergy, and people, as X 2 sembled sembled at a church which had obtained celebrity for this prodigy, saw that the baptistery was empty, enjoyed a marvellous fragrance unlike that of any earthly flowers or spices, which came as the vesper of the divine virtue, and then sealed up the doors of the church. On Easter eve the doors were unlocked with equal publicity; the baptistery was then found full, and all the children born within the preceding twelve months were baptized. The Arian king Theudiselo could not be persuaded that this was miraculous, and endeavoured to discover the secret. It baffled him for two years: on the third, not content with setting his own seal upon the doors, and appointing guards as before, he dug a deep trench round the church; but before the day of trial arrived he was murdered, as opportunely as Arius himself. The catholics soon followed up their victory with penal laws, and the whole of the last book of the Fuero Juzgo, or code of the Spanish Wisi-Goths, consists of statutes against heretics and Jews. By these laws whoever disputed against the faith or against any of the decrees of the church, was condemned to the forfeiture of all his possessions and to perpetual banishment. Bloodier edicts were enacted against the Jews by the kings Suinthela, Recesuinthus, Sisebutus and Egica, the latter of whom raised a dreadful persecution against them upon an absurd accusation, that they had conspired with the Jews of Africa and other countries, and were about to rise upon the Christians and destroy them. For this pretended crime they were condemned to slavery, and all their children after the age of seven taken from them and made christians; a compulsory conversion was also at the time made of the parents, and laws were past, ordering, that if they were detected in the observance of any ceremony or custom of their law, they should be stoned or burnt. A curious act of abjuration by the Jews of Toledo in the days of Recesuinthus, is preserved in the Fuero Juzgo. In obedience to his decrees and to those of king Suinthela, they renounce the error of their fathers, for themselves and for their wives and children, and they abjure the society of all Jews who will not in like manner be- come converts to Christianity. We will not practise circumcision, they say, we will not keep the paschal, nor the sabbath, nor any other feast after the manner of the Jews; we will make no distinction of meats; and we will believe with pure faith and with perfect good will, and with great devotion, in Christ, the son of the living God, according to the holy evangelists and apostles. And if any among us should either do any thing contrary to the christian faith, or delay to do these things which we promise, we swear by that same Father, Son, and Holy Ghost, one God in Trinity, that we will burn him or stone him. But the most remarkable part of the abjuration is one poor salvo, Concerning pork, they say, this we promise, promise, that if we should not be able actually to eat it, because we have not been used to it, we will nevertheless eat any thing which may have been drest with it, without dislike or loathing.They were afraid their stomachs would be turned as well as their consciences. A people who were thus wickedly oppressed, received the Moors as their deliverers, and they are said, though upon doubtful autho rity, to have betrayed Toledo, the capital of the Gothic kingdom, into their hands. The Moorish conquest obtained for them some centuries of comparative tranquillity. That revolution checked the spirit of intolerance, and for a while entirely suspended it. No heretics are heard of in the first ages of the Spanish monarchy, because none were sought for; but the names of Arius and Pelagius, which continually appear during those ages as baptismal appellations, show that the opinions of those two great heresiarchs long held their ground. The spirit of intolerance, however, was only sleeping; after its awakening it raged with greater fury in other parts of Europe than in Spain, but no where did it become so intimately connected with the system of government, and no where did it produce so permanent an effect upon the national character, and so materially affect the fate of the nation; this arose from the peculiar circumstances of the Peninsula. The wonderful and monstrous establishment which in the dark ages was substituted for the religion of Christ, is the greatest monument of human genius, human wickedness, and human weakness, that was ever reared. Yet it did not originate in evil; and the good which it produced, tended to counteract its baneful effects. In the twelfth century, when that establishment had reached the summit of its power, every part of Europe still felt the shock of the northern irruption; the tempest had indeed subsided, but the swell continued still. The conquerors, though they had yielded to the religion of the conquered, were as yet little ameliorated by their conversion: the superstition which they had embraced was hardly less irrational than that which they had abandoned; the same restless spirit of adventure was abroad, and kingdoms were still the prize of the successful adventurer. It is impossible to contemplate the church at this period without admiration and astonishment; nor ought it to be contemplated without gratitude also, for had it not been for the labours and persevering efforts of the clergy we might at this day have been groan * Brito perceives that these names indicate a cherished heresy, and endeavours to evade the inference by deriving the latter (the Pelayo of Spain and the Payo of Portugal and Galicia) from a saint of the tenth century. But how came the saint by it? and is it possible that Brito should have forgotten at the moment the founder of the Spanish monarchy, whose history he himself had written, in the very work wherein he thus represents his name as originating three centuries after him? X 3 ing ing under the voke of a feudal aristocracy like the Circassians. Perverted, dishonoured and debased as christianity has been, we owe to it even our temporal redemption. Though Europe was partitioned among different races, disunited by different languages, and disturbed by the jarring interests of ambitious families, and hostile nations, the various countries still formed one common state. Christendom was in those ages more than a name; the German and the Spaniard, the Englishman and the Italian, the Hun and the Frenchman, all were Christians; they were all brethren in faith such as their faith was, and they acknowledged the law of their common father as that from which there was no appeal. On this basis the papal dominion was erected. The Servant of the Servants of God was acknowledged wherever his religion extended, as supreme on earth; his standing army was distributed through every kingdom and province; in the castle and in the palace, in the towns and villages, the soldiers of the church militant were stationed; they had their territory assigned them in every parish throughout Christendom, and the fruits of every field, and the produce of every flock and herd were decimated for their portion. The Benedictines brought this system to perfection. The world has never been so deeply indebted to any other body of men as to this illustrious order; but historians when relating the evil of which they were the occasion, have too frequently forgotten the good which they produced. Even the commonest readers are familiar with the history of that arch miracle-monger St. Dunstan; while the most learned of our countrymen scarcely remember the names of those admirable men who went forth from England and became the apostles of the North. Tinian and Juan Fernandez are not more beautiful spots in the ocean, than Malmsbury and Lindisfarne, and Jarrow in the ages of our heptarchy: a community of pious men devoted to literature and to the useful arts, as well as to religion, seems in those ages like a green oasis amid the desert; like stars in a moonless night, they shine upon us with a tranquil and heavenly radiance. If ever there was a man who could truly be called venerable, it is he to whom that appellation is constantly affixed, Bede, whose life was past in instructing his own generation and in preparing records for posterity. In those days the church offered the only asylum from the evils to which every country was exposed: amidst continual wars the church enjoyed peace; it was regarded like a sacred realm by men who, though they hated each other, believed and feared the same God. Abused as it was by the worldly-minded and ambitious, and disgraced by the artifices of the designing and the follies of the fanatic, it afforded a shelter to those who were better than the world in their youth, or weary of it in their age; the wise as well as the |