Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Vol. 75, No. 461, March, 1854 by Various

by Various

THE RUSSIAN CHURCH AND THE PROTECTORATE IN TURKEY.

Before many weeks shall have gone over, perhaps while these sheets are passing through the press, we shall be able to judge of the accuracy of Lord Ellenborough’s opinion, as expressed in the House of Lords on the 6th February, that we are on the eve of one of the most formidable wars that ever this country was engaged in. Yes; within a short period from the present date much will be known; the Russian problem will be near its solution. The mystery of that force, which is said to be irresistible, and of those resources said to be inexhaustible, will be laid bare to the world. We shall know if all that we have been told of that vast power which has kept Europe in awe, is real; if the colossal idol which all have gazed on with a feeling that cannot be accurately described, does not stand on feet of clay. We confess that recent events have somewhat weakened the general faith in the overwhelming strength of Russia, and people begin to have some doubt whether the world has not been imposed upon. With her vast territorial extent, including nearly one-seventh part of the terrestrial portion of the globe and one twenty-seventh of its entire surface, and her varied population, comprising nearly one-ninth of the human race, she has spoken as if she could domineer over all Europe; and until the Pruth was passed, and the Danube became once more the theatre of battle, mankind seemed, if not entirely to admit, at least unwilling to dispute the claim. The combats of Oltenitza and Citale have, we suspect, disturbed that belief. Foreign and all but hostile flags have, within the last few weeks, floated almost within sight of Sebastopol; the squadrons of England and France have swept the hitherto unapproachable Euxine, from the Thracian Bosphorus to Batoun, and from Batoun back to Beicos Bay, and her fleet has not ventured to cross their path. Should Austria, listening to her evil genius, prove false to her own interests, we believe that the anticipations of the noble Lord referred to will be realised. Should she consult her own safety, and make common cause with those whose warlike preparations are not for aggression, but defence, we still incline to the opinion that hostilities may be limited to their original theatre—to be temporarily arrested, if not closed, by diplomatic intervention. The unsuccessful issue, at least to the date at which we write, of Count Orloff’s mission, gives us some hope that such will be the case; but a very short time will enable us to judge whether the advance of a corps d’armée to the Servian frontier is to aid Russian aggression, or to act, if necessary, against it.

An aggressive spirit has invariably marked the policy of Russia from the time of Peter the Great. Long harassed by internal enemies, and sometimes struggling for existence, she at length was freed from the dangers which had menaced her from abroad. By a fortunate concurrence of circumstances, the moment when her government became constituted, and began to enjoy its liberty of action, the neighbouring states, from the Baltic to the Caspian, entered into their period of weakness. The wild ambition and the mad enterprise of Charles XII. occasioned the decline of Sweden. The chivalrous monarch, the conqueror of Narva, the vanquished of Pultova, perished in the ditch of Frederickshall. Peter triumphed over his most formidable enemy; and, if he did not from that moment begin his aggression in the Ottoman territory, he was at all events no longer embarrassed by the dangerous diversions in the north. There still, however, remained an obstacle to his designs on those magnificent possessions of the Osmanlis, which have at all times possessed the fatal privilege of attracting the cupidity of the northern barbarian. There still remained Poland; but her anarchy, her internal convulsions, inseparable from her anomalous institutions, proved to be no less profitable to the Muscovite than the madness of the Scandinavian hero; and from the day of her dismemberment, Turkey became the permanent object of the ambition which, even as we write, threatens to convulse Europe.

It rarely happens that up to the close of a long war the original cause of quarrel continues the same. The first dissension disappears as war progresses, and, in the numerous complications which hostilities give rise to, the belligerents themselves either forget, or do not assign the same importance to the question which originally arrayed them in arms against each other. Though the war between Russia and Turkey has not yet a remote date, and though hostilities have not yet been formally declared between Russia and the Western Powers, notwithstanding the recall of their respective ambassadors, we still fear that the public is beginning to lose sight of the primary grounds of quarrel between the Czar and the Sultan, and which has led to the present state of things. The pretext put forward by Russia for intervention in the Ottoman empire is her desire to “protect” the ten millions of Christians of the Greek Church who are subjects of the Porte; these ten millions professing the same faith as the subjects of the Emperor of Russia, and living under the tyrannous rule of an infidel government. We admit the plausibility of that claim, and we are aware how easily the generous sympathies of a Christian people can be roused in favour of such a cause. We can appreciate the feelings of those who are persuaded that the moment has at length arrived when the Cross shall be planted on the mosques of Stamboul, and the orthodox believer take the place of the Mussulman. The claim to a Protectorate over ten millions of suffering Greeks in the European territory of the Sultan has been described as a cover, under which Russia aims at the possession of Constantinople, and, in fact, at the extension of her dominion from the Carpathian to the Danube, and from the Danube to the Sea of Marmora; but the Czar has solemnly and repeatedly declared that he had no such ambition, and that the sole motive which actuated him was to protect a population who professed the self-same religion as himself, he being the visible head of the Eastern Church, and recognised as such by the Eastern or Greek Christians; and the refusal of the Porte to grant that Protectorate is the primary cause of the war. Without examining whether any, or what conditions would justify a foreign government in imposing its protection on the subjects of an independent state, we may be permitted to say something of the nature of the religion whose champion the Czar professes to be; of the alleged homogeneity of the Eastern and Russian Churches, for on this the whole question turns; and of the advantages likely to accrue to the Greeks from Russian protection.

Among the many errors likely to be dissipated by the minute discussion which the Eastern question has undergone in the public press of this and other countries, not the least is that which has reference to the Emperor of Russia as the natural Protector of the Christian communities of the East. The hardihood with which this claim has been constantly put forward, and the silent acquiescence with which it seems to have been admitted by those who should know better, have imposed upon the world. Even now, they who resist the formal establishment of the influence of Russia over the internal affairs of Turkey, do so more by reason of the political consequences of that usurpation to the rest of Europe, than with the thought of disputing the abstract right of the head of the “Orthodox Faith” to the Protectorate he lays claim to. These pretensions, like many others we could mention, will not stand the test of examination. We do not learn, on any satisfactory evidence, that the Christian populations of the Ottoman empire have, during the last ten months, received with sympathy or encouragement the prospect of Russian protection; nor have they, so far as we know, exhibited any very earnest longing for the introduction of the knout as an element of government. The population of independent Greece may, and, we have no doubt, do, indulge in the harmless dream of a new Byzantine empire to be raised on the ruins of that which Mahomet II. won from their fathers; and they would doubtless rejoice that the domination of the Osmanlis were put an end to by Russia, or any other power, on condition of being their successors, as they were their predecessors. We believe that to this sort of revolution the aspirations of the Greeks are limited. But that people dispute the claim of the Czar to the Pontificate of the “Orthodox Faith,” and reject the idea of a temporal submission to him. The Greek Church, however, does not constitute the only Christian community of the Ottoman empire. Other congregations are to be found there, subjects also of the Porte, and who have not less claim to the protection of the various states of Europe, when protection is needed; but who still less desire that Russia should be their sole protector.

The points of difference between the Greek and Latin Churches are familiar to the world. But it may not be so generally known that, while the Russian branch of the former professes to preserve the Byzantine dogmas as its basis, the condition of its hierarchy, and the mechanism of its discipline, have become so altered with the lapse of years, that, at the present day, there exists no identity in this respect that would justify the head of the Russian Church in his pretensions to a temporal or spiritual protectorate over that church whose administrator and head is the Patriarch of Constantinople. Besides the difference of language, which is not without its importance—the one speaking Greek, the other Sclavonic—the Church of Constantinople still boasts that she has preserved her Patriarch, who is independent of secular interference in spirituals, while no such privilege belongs to Russia. A serious difference, too, exists between the Russian and Greek Churches (and one which would create new schisms and new convulsions) on the important question of baptism. Converts are admitted into the pale of the former from other communities, when they have been already baptized, without the obligation of again receiving the sacrament; while the Church of Constantinople makes the repetition of the sacrament indispensable in similar cases. The difference of church government is of the greatest importance: the Greeks have never admitted that the Holy Synod of St Petersburg, established by Peter the Great, represents in any sense the spiritual authority which he forcibly overthrew. The substitution of the chief of the state for it was never pretended to be otherwise than for political purposes, and as a means of realising the ambitious and aggressive designs of the Czar; and, while we do not deny the success it has met with, we believe that, since that event, the Russian clergy, as a body, has become the most ignorant and the most servile of any ecclesiastical corporation that now exists. The edict of Peter the Great admits the merely temporal object he had in view. “A spiritual authority,” it states, “which is represented by a corporation, or college, will never excite in the nation so much agitation and effervescence as a single chief of the ecclesiastical order. The lower classes of the people are incapable of comprehending the difference between the spiritual and secular authority. When they witness the extraordinary respect and honour which encompass a supreme pontiff, their admiration and wonder are so excited, that they look upon the chief of the Church as a second sovereign, whose dignity is equal, or even superior, to that of the monarch himself; and they are disposed to attach to the ecclesiastical rank a character of power superior to the other. Now, as it is incontestable that the common people indulge in such reflections, what, we ask, would be the case if the unjust disputes of an arbitrary clergy were added to light up a conflagration?” At the time this edict was issued, the Russian Church had already lost its patriarch. Full twenty years had elapsed since that event; and if ever the mitre of a prelate rivalled the diadem of an emperor, it was not in the reign of Peter that such an instance was to be found. No serious antagonism of the kind did or could exist in Russia; and the real object of the abolition of the patriarchate was, to combine with the absolutism of the sovereign the prestige of spiritual supremacy—that the Czar might not only say, with Louis XIV., “The State! I am the State;” but also, “The Church! I am the Church.”

The Holy Synod of St Petersburg is, it is true, composed of some of the highest dignitaries of the Russian Church, (taken from the monastic order); but these are appointed by the secular authority; are presided over by a layman who represents the Czar, and whose veto can suspend, or even annul, the most solemn resolutions of the Synod, even when unanimously adopted. The person who occupied for years, and who, we believe, still occupies the important post of President of the Supreme Ecclesiastical Council, which regulates and decides on all matters concerning the discipline and administration of the Church of Russia, is a general of cavalry—General Protuson! The body thus controlled by a military chief, may be increased in numbers, or reduced, according to the pleasure of the Czar; but those who ordinarily constitute that Ecclesiastical Board are the metropolitan of St Petersburg, the archbishops, a bishop, the Emperor’s confessor, an archimandrite (one degree lower than a bishop), the chaplain-general of the naval and military forces, and an arch-priest. But, whatever be the rank, the learning, or the piety of the Synod, one thing must be well understood by them;—they must never dare to express an opinion, or give utterance to a thought, in opposition to the Czar. The edicts of the Synod bear the imperial impress; they are invariably headed with this formula, “By the most high will, command, and conformably to the sublime wishes of his Majesty, &c. &c.” If it be alleged that the authority of the Holy Synod, with its bearded, booted, and sabred president, relates merely to the temporal administration of the Church, and that should a question of dogma arise recourse would be had to an Œcumenical Council, composed of all the churches of the Oriental rite, we reply that the superintendence of the Synod is not confined to points of mere administration or discipline. The canonisation of a saint, for instance, is not a matter of mere administration. When a subject is proposed for that distinction—and the Russian Hagiology is more scandalously filled than the Roman in the worst times of the Papacy—it is the Synod, that is, the Emperor, who decides on the claims to worship of the unknown candidate, whose remains may have been previously sanctified by the gross superstition of a barbarous peasantry. It is true that, in consequence of some notorious criminals having, not many years ago, been added to the list of orthodox saints, the Emperor, since the discovery of this, has manifested considerable repugnance to exercising this important part of his pontifical functions. He has, on recent occasions, refused his fiat of canonisation. A few years ago, some human bones were dug up on the banks of a stream in the government of Kazan, which, for some reason or other, were supposed to possess miraculous powers. A cunning speculator thought it a regular godsend; and petitions were forthwith sent to St Petersburg claiming divine honours for the unknown. The petitions were repeatedly rejected, but as often pressed on the Emperor. His Pontifical Majesty, who was assured, on high authority, that the claims of the present candidate were quite as well founded as those of many in the Hagiology, at last consented to issue his order of canonisation, but roundly swore that he would not grant another saintship as long as he lived. Yet it is not doubted that the opportunity offered by the present “holy war” of continuing the sacred list will be made use of unsparingly.

In other Churches the sacerdotal character is indelible; it is conferred by the ecclesiastical authority, and whether by the imposition of hands, or any other formality, cannot be destroyed even where the party is suspended from his sacred functions, or prohibited altogether from performing them. But neither suspension, nor degradation, can be considered as a matter of mere administration, or ordinary discipline; and the Emperor’s military representative has it in his power to decide on the degradation of any clergyman, and to completely efface the sacerdotal character acquired by ordination.

But, supposing the improbable event of an Œcumenical Council, in which the various Churches of the East should enter as component parts, in what manner, we may be permitted to ask, would the Russians claim to be represented? Would the Patriarch of Constantinople, or those of Antioch, Jerusalem, and Alexandria, who are under his spiritual jurisdiction, and who pronounce the Muscovite Church as, if not heretical, at least schismatical, submit to be presided over by an aide-de-camp of the Czar; or would they recognise, in favour of his Majesty, the quality of impeccability, or infallibility, which they refuse to the head of the Latin Church?

With that complete dependence in spiritual as in temporal government on the chief of the State, and that debasing servitude of the Russian Church, may be compared with advantage the immunities and privileges of the Church of Constantinople even under the Mussulman government. Its Patriarch is the chief of the Greek communities, the president of their Synod, and the sovereign judge, without interference on the part of the Sultan’s authority, of all civil and religious matters relating to these communities which may be brought before it. The Patriarch, and the twelve metropolitans who, under his presidency, compose the Synod, or Grand Council of the Greek nation, are exempt from the Haratch, or personal impost. The imposts the Greek nation pays to the government are apportioned, not by the Mussulman authorities, but by its own archbishops and bishops. Those prelates are de officio members of the municipal councils, by the same right as the Turkish governors and muftis. The cadis and governors are bound to see to the execution of the decisions or judgments of the bishops, in all that relates to their dioceses respectively; and to enforce the payment of the contributions which constitute the ecclesiastical revenues. The clergy of the Greek Church receive from each family of their own communion an annual contribution, for the decent maintenance of public worship. They celebrate marriages, pronounce divorces, draw up wills, and from all these acts derive a considerable revenue; and, in certain cases, they are authorised to receive legacies bequeathed for pious objects. For every judgment pronounced by their tribunals, the Patriarch and metropolitans are entitled to a duty on the value of the property in litigation, of ten per cent. They have the power of sentencing to fine, to imprisonment, to corporal punishment, and to exile, independently of the spiritual power they possess, and which they not rarely exercise, of excommunication. The Patriarch and the prelates are paid a fixed contribution by the priests to whom the higher functions of the ministry are confided; and these, in turn, receive a proportional amount from the clergy under their immediate superintendence. The incomes of the Patriarchs of Jerusalem, Antioch, and Alexandria, of the thirty-two archbishops, and the one hundred and forty bishops of the Ottoman empire, are paid out of these public contributions.

These immunities present, as we have said, a striking contrast with the condition of the orthodox Church in Russia. A Church so endowed, and with powers over the millions who belong to its communion, would naturally tempt an ambitious sovereign to become its master under the name of Protector. We discard completely any inquiry into the relative merits of the two communities; but we think it must be evident to any impartial mind, that the protectorate of the Czar, in his character of head of the orthodox faith, would make him the supreme ruler over the Ottoman empire in Europe.

We do not mean to allege that the immunities of the Christian population have been faithfully respected by the pashas, the cadis, or other agents of the Porte. We admit that most of what has been said of the intolerance and the corruption of Turkish officials is true, and that acts of oppression and cruelty have been perpetrated, which call for the severest reprehension, and require the interference of the Christian governments of Europe. But what we dispute is, the exclusive right of the Emperor of Russia to such intervention or to such protectorate.

The Church of Constantinople regards that of St Petersburg as schismatical, however nearly they approach in some respects; and so far from acknowledging a right of Protectorate, either in the Synod or the Emperor, she claims over her younger and erring sister all that superiority which is imparted by primogeniture. She would reject the claim of Russia to supremacy, and refuse to be administered by a servile Synod, with a nominee of the Czar for President. To submit to that Protectorate would be to admit foreign authority; that admission would involve the loss of her Patriarch, the evidence of her independence; and to this conviction may be traced the indifference of the Greek population to Russian influence, and the co-operation its clergy has given to the Porte.

But, scattered amid the immense population which are subject to the Sultan, may be found communions not belonging to the Confession of Photius as adopted by the Eastern Churches, and still less to the schismatical branch of it which is known as the Russian Church. These communions have no relation, affinity, or in fact anything whatever in common with the Synod of St Petersburg, or the Czar, whom they regard as a spiritual usurper, and the creed he professes as all but heretical. The Eutychian Armenians amount to no less than 2,400,000 persons, of whom nearly 80,000 are actually united to the Latin Church; but, whatever be the difference in dogma or ceremonial between them, they unite in opposition to the Synod of St Petersburg, and in submission to the Porte. There are moreover, upwards of a million of Roman Catholics and united Greeks—that is, Greeks who admit the supremacy of the Pope, while observing their own ceremonial, and who, it will not be questioned, have an equal right to protection, where protection is requisite. We can easily understand the interference of the European powers on behalf of those communities among whom are to be found persons of the same religious belief as themselves; but we cannot understand on what grounds an exclusive claim is put forward by a power which can have no sympathy with them, and which has destroyed the most important link that connected the Church of St Petersburg with that of the Patriarch. The possession of Constantinople by the Russians would, we are convinced, be followed by the destruction of the independence of the Eastern Church, the substitution of some Russian general or admiral, Prince Menschikoff perhaps, or Prince Gortschakoff, or whoever may happen to be the favourite of the day, for the venerable Patriarch; and by the most cruel persecution, not perhaps so much from religious intolerance, as for the same reasons assigned by Peter the Great for his abolition of the patriarchal dignity. The treatment of the united Greeks of the Russian empire, the Catholics of Poland and of the Muscovite provinces, is sufficient to show to those who, now at all events, live tranquilly under the rule of the Sultan, what they have to expect from the tolerance, the equity, or the mercy of such a Russian Protector. One-fourth of the Latin population ruled over by the Czar is made up of various religious sects and forms of worship—Catholicism, Lutheranism, Calvinism, Mahometanism, Judaism, Lamaism, Schamaism, &c. In theory these different persuasions have a right to toleration; but in practice the case is different. The jealousy of the Czars, and their determination to reduce all that comes within their grasp to the same dead level of servitude, cannot endure a difference of any kind, religious or political; and pretexts are never wanting for persecutions, which have been compared to those of the worst days of the Roman emperors. The Baltic provinces, Lithuania and Poland, testify to the truth of these allegations. It appears clear, then, that the Christian communities of the Ottoman empire do not require the protection or domination of Russia, which would crush all alike.

We beg to point out another, and a material error into which the generality of people have fallen with reference to the Christian population of Turkey in Europe. The oppression of a Christian people by a misbelieving despotism is sufficient, of itself, to enlist the sympathies of a civilised and tolerant nation; and the fact of that oppression being practised by a small minority over a multitude composing three-fourths of the population of the Ottoman empire in Europe, is denounced as a monstrous anomaly; and the public indignation has been roused at the idea of scarcely three millions and a half of Turks grinding to the dust more than ten millions of Christians. We execrate religious oppression as much as any one can do; and whether the persecuted be numerous or few, one or one thousand, the crime is, in principle, the same. But we can show that, in the present instance, the aggravating circumstance of so great a difference in numbers does not exist. Those who speak of ten millions of Greek Christians being oppressed by three millions of Turks, forget, or may not be aware, that Moldavia and Wallachia, known as the Danubian Principalities, and now “protected” to the utmost by synods of another kind from that of St Petersburg—by military tribunals, and martial law—contain a population of above four millions, all of whom, with the exception of about fifty thousand Hungarian Catholics, are members of the Greek, though not of the Russo-Greek Church. Now, the Moldo-Wallachians are, in their domestic administration, independent of the Porte, the tie which attaches them to it—the payment of a comparatively small tribute—being of the slenderest kind. The Principalities are governed by their own princes or hospodars, formerly named for life, and, since the convention of 1849 between Russia and the Porte, for seven years; they are selected from among their own boyards, and receive investiture only from the Sultan. The Moldo-Wallachian army is recruited from the Moldo-Wallachian population, and is organised on the Russian plan, with Russian staff-officers. In neither of the three provinces is there a Turkish garrison, nor a Turkish authority of any kind, nor a single Turkish soldier; there is consequently no Turkish oppression or persecution. Servia, with a population of about a million, mostly Christians of the Greek communion, is equally independent of the Porte. The Turks have, it is true, a garrison in Belgrade, limited, by treaty with Austria, to a certain force; and Belgrade itself is the residence of a Pasha; but, beyond this trifling military occupation, the acknowledgment, as a matter of form, of the supremacy of the Sultan, and a small tribute in money, nothing else is left them. And, as in the case of the Danubian provinces, the internal government is entirely in the hands of the Servians themselves. The liberal institutions established in Servia by Prince Milosch Obrenowitsch, were not disturbed or interfered with by the Porte, to which they gave no umbrage, but were overthrown by Russian intrigue. In Servia no oppression, no persecution, is or can be practised by the Turks, who are powerless. Thus, we have about five millions of population to be deducted from the ten millions said to be mercilessly oppressed, outraged, and persecuted by Mussulman bigotry;—and also said to be eager for the religious Protectorate of Russia.

The Danubian Principalities were formerly governed by princes called waywodes, who were appointed by the Sultan. Those waywodes, it is true, exercised every species of oppression; but our readers will perhaps be surprised when they learn that these provincial tyrants were not Mussulmans: they were Christians, and Christians of the same communion as the people whom they ruled over; and they were selected because they were Christians, to administer Christian dependencies. The waywodes were Fanariote Greeks, and denizens of Constantinople. We do not deny that the Turkish government were bound to see that their provinces were properly administered; but they were powerless to repress these abuses, as they were powerless to repress the abuses in the Turkish Pashalicks.

The influence of Russia for a long time, and particularly for the last twenty-five years, has been paramount in the Danubian Principalities. We have shown that the Moldo-Wallachians, with a slight exception, prefer the Greek rite; but there is no evidence that they have any religious sympathies with the Church of which the Emperor of Russia is the head. The Moldo-Wallachians also regard the Russian dogmas as schismatic, and recognise only the religious supremacy of the Patriarch of Constantinople. In Paris there is a Russian chapel for the use of the Russian embassy, the residents of that nation, and the few subjects of Independent Greece who may think it proper, or useful, to attend Russian worship. The Moldo-Wallachians who also reside in the French capital have been often pressed to attend that chapel, with a view, no doubt, to establish in the eyes of the world a homogeneity which in reality does not exist. As a proof of the antipathy between the two communions, we quote a passage from a discourse delivered on the occasion of the opening of a temporary place of worship for the Moldo-Wallachians by the Archimandrite Suagoano. To those who still believe that there exists the bond of a common faith between the Church of Constantinople and that of St Petersburg, and that the Moldo-Wallachians, or the Greeks of the Ottoman empire, desire a Russian Protectorate, we recommend the perusal of the following, which was pronounced to a numerous congregation in the beginning of January last. “When we expressed a desire,” said the archimandrite, “to found a chapel of our own rite, we were told that a Russian chapel already existed in Paris, and we were asked why the Roumains (Moldo-Wallachians) do not frequent it? What! Roumains to frequent a Russian place of worship! Is it then forgotten that they can never enter its walls, and that the Wallachians who die in Paris, forbid, at their very last hour, that their bodies should be borne to a Muscovite chapel, and declare that the presence of a Russian priest would be an insult to their tomb. Whence comes this irreconcilable hatred? That hatred is perpetuated by the difference of language. The Russian tongue is Sclavonic; ours is Latin. Is there in fact a single Roumain who understands the language of the Muscovites? That hatred is just; for is not Russia our mortal enemy? Has she not closed up our schools, and debarred us from all instruction, in order to sink our people into the depths of barbarism, and to reduce them the more easily to servitude? On that hatred I pronounce a blessing; for the Russian Church is a schism which the Roumains reject; because the Russian Church has separated from the great Eastern Church; because the Russian Church does not recognise as its head the Patriarch of Constantinople; because it does not receive the Holy Unction of Byzantium; because it has constituted itself into a Synod of which the Czar is the despot; and because that Synod, in obedience to his orders, has changed its worship, has fabricated an unction which it terms holy, has suppressed or changed the fast days, and the Lents as established by our bishops; because it has canonised Sclavonians who are apocryphal saints, such as Vladimir, Olga, and so many others whose names are unknown to us; because the rite of Confession, which was instituted to ameliorate and save the penitent, has become, by the servility of the Muscovite clergy, an instrument for spies for the benefit of the Czar; in fine, because that Synod has violated the law, and that its reforms are arbitrary, and are made to further the objects of despotism. These acts of impiety being so notorious, and those truths so known, who shall now maintain that the Russian Church is not schismatic? Our Councils reject it; our canons forbid us to recognise it; our Church disavows it; and all who hold to the faith, and whom she recognises for her children, are bound to respect her decision, and to consider the Russian rite as a schismatic rite. Such are the motives which prevent the Roumains from attending the Russian chapel in Paris!” This address was received with enthusiasm by the assemblage. Letters of felicitation have been received by the archimandrite from his unhappy brethren of the Principalities, who are driven with the bayonet to the churches to chant Te Deum for Russian victories; and, impoverished as they are, the prelates and priests of Wallachia send their mites to Paris, to aid in the construction of a true Greek church.[^[2]]

It would be unjust to charge any religious community with the responsibility of the crimes or vices of individual members. The police offices and law courts in our own country occasionally disclose cases of moral depravity among members of the clerical profession; but these cases are few, we are happy to say, in comparison with the number of pious and learned men that compose the body. Nor do we pronounce a sweeping anathema on the Russo-Greek Church, because, with the exception of, as we are informed, a few of the superior dignitaries, no ecclesiastical corporation can produce more examples of gross ignorance and vicious habits. The degradation, the miserable condition of the mass of the Russian clergy, the pittance they receive from the State, being insufficient to keep body and soul together, and the almost total want of instruction, are, no doubt, the cause of this state of things. Marriage is a primary and indispensable condition for the priesthood; and the death of the wife, unless where a special exemption is accorded by the Synod or the Emperor, involves not merely the loss of his sacerdotal functions, but completely annuls the priestly character. The widowed priest returns to a lay condition from that moment; he may become a field labourer, or a valet; a quay porter, or a groom; a mechanic, or a soldier of the army of Caucasus; but his functions at the altar cease then, and for ever. The irregularities which in Russia, as elsewhere, prevailed in the monastic establishments, afforded a pretext to that rude reformer, Peter the Great, for abolishing the greater number of them. Their immense wealth, the gifts of the piety or the superstition of past ages, was a temptation which the inexorable despot could not resist; and having once acquired a taste for plunder, he appropriated not only monastic property, whilst abolishing monasteries, but filled the imperial treasury with the confiscated wealth of the secular clergy. What Peter left undone Catherine II. completed. During the reign of that Princess, whose own frailties might have taught her sympathy for human weaknesses, the whole of the remaining immovable property of the Church was seized. The correspondent and friend of Voltaire and the Encyclopedists filled with joy the hearts of the philosophers of Paris, by the appropriation of the resources of superstition, which she devoted to the realisation of her ambitious projects, or to recompense richly the services of her numerous favourites. Miserable pittances were allotted to the functionaries to whom that great wealth had belonged; but the distractions of love and war too often interfered with the payment of even those pittances. In Moscow, St Petersburg, and some other large cities, there are still, perhaps, a few benefices which afford a decent subsistence to the holders; but the stipends, even when augmented by the casuel, the chance and voluntary contribution paid by individuals for special masses, and certain small perquisites for funerals, &c., are insufficient to maintain, in anything approaching to comfort, a single, much less a married clergyman. There appears to be some difference of opinion among the best authorities on the exact stipends received by the higher clergy. The income of the senior metropolitan, the first dignitary of the orthodox church, including all sources of revenue, has never been estimated at more than from £600 to £700 per annum; that of the other metropolitans, at about £160; of an archbishop, £120; of a bishop, £80; of an archimandrite, the next in rank after a bishop, from £40 to £50. The wooden hut inhabited by a parish priest is not superior to that of the poorest of his parishioners, and the spot of land attached is cultivated by his own hands. The destitute condition of the inferior clergy has many times been brought under the notice of the government, and commissioners have been named to examine into the complaints, but without producing any result.

Under such circumstances, it is not extraordinary that the clergy should become degraded in the eyes of the people, and be regarded, when not in the performance of their sacred functions, as objects of derision and contempt. With starvation at home, they are forced to seek in the houses of others what their own cannot supply; to satisfy the most pressing wants of nature, they submit to scoff and insult; and wherever feasting is going on, the priest is found an unbidden, and in most instances an unwelcome guest. This state of life leads to vagrant, idle, and dissolute habits, and it is declared, on what appears to be competent authority, that intemperance is the general characteristic of the lower clergy of Russia. Intemperance easily leads to other vices. According to official reports laid before the Synod, there were, in the single year 1836, 208 ecclesiastics degraded for infamous crimes, and 1985 for crimes or offences less grave. In that year the clergy comprised 102,456 members;—the number degraded and sentenced by the tribunals was therefore about two per cent. In 1839, the number of priests condemned by the tribunal was one out of twenty; and during the three years from 1836 to 1839 inclusive, the cases were 15,443, or one-sixth of the whole. A good deal of scandal, as well there might be, was occasioned by the reports of the Synod, and that body received a hint to be more discreet in exposing to the sneers of the heterodox the state of the orthodox church. It attempted, in a subsequent report, to explain away or palliate those disorders. “If such things,” says the Synodical Report of 1837, “cannot be entirely avoided by reason of the vast extent of the empire; of the want of seminaries, attendance at which has been only recently obligatory; of the little instruction received by the clergy, who in this respect are, as it were, in a state of infancy—so much so, that one old barbarism has not yet disappeared—nevertheless, the same clergy has exhibited rich examples of ancient piety and severity of morals.” Dr Pinkerton assures us that there are to be found among the families of the parochial clergy, a degree of culture and good manners peculiar to themselves. If we can rely on accounts more recent, and quite as good, these are but rare exceptions; and we fear that matters are pretty much the same as when Coxe was in Russia, and many of the parish priests were so ignorant as to be unable to read, even in their own language, the gospel they were commissioned to preach. M. de Haxthausen, whose testimony is entitled to great respect, says, “Ecclesiastics of merit are rare in the country. The greater number of the old popes are ignorant, brutal, without any instruction, and exclusively given up to their personal interests. In the performance of religious ceremonies, and in the dispensation of the sacraments, they have often no other object in view than to obtain presents. They have no care about the spiritual welfare of their flocks, and impart neither consolation nor instruction to them.” This ignorance, added to relaxed morals, accounts for their want of influence with the people, who are in the habit of treating them with the most contemptuous familiarity. The lower classes have special sarcasms and insulting proverbs applicable to their popes.

The higher ranks of the Russian clergy are principally, we believe exclusively, taken from the Tschernoi Duhovenstvo, or black clergy—monks who live in convents, and pass their lives in the practice of religious observances. Their superiority to the secular clergy is in all respects considerable, and whatever of instruction exists among the priesthood must be sought for in the retreats of the Basilians—the only order of monks, we believe, in Russia. They live, however, apart from the people; they have no direct intercourse with them; they are ignorant, or regardless, of their material or moral wants; and for them they feel no sympathy or affection. It must not be supposed that this superiority over the parochial or secular clergy, in station or morals, implies independence, separately or collectively. Their dependence on the government differs not in the least from that of the most ignorant village pope, or of the meanest serf. The high functionaries and dignitaries of the Church are, as we have already observed, taken from the monastic body; and as the Synod, or, which is all the same, the Emperor, can deprive an ecclesiastic of his functions, and degrade him to a lay condition, the metropolitan archbishop, or bishop, who cares to keep his mitre, has no other choice than to be the docile and zealous agent of the Autocrat. Since the time of Peter the Great, the whole body of the Russian clergy, from the highest to the lowest, have lain grovelling in the dust at the feet of every tyrant with the title of Czar or Czarina; and no other corporation in the world that we have any knowledge of, lay or clerical, equals it in hopeless servitude. Taught from their infancy to regard the Czar as the sole dispenser of good and evil, and firmly believing that every people on the earth trembles at his name, they scarcely make any distinction between him and the Deity; and in their public and private devotions their adoration is divided, perhaps not equally, between God and the Emperor. Those names are mingled together in the first lessons they learn, and their awe of the mortal ruler is more intense than their love for the Creator. Those ideas are transmitted by the priests to their children; and as the ranks of the clerical body are filled up almost exclusively from the families of the popes, ignorance and slavishness become as traditional and as hereditary as the office for which they are indispensable. The jealous fears of the Autocrat prevent grafting on the old stock, and he suffers no innovation of any kind to animate that torpid mass of bondage.

In alluding to the social degradation of the Russian clergy, it is but fair to admit that there are certain privileges attached to that body which are not accorded to the rest of his Imperial Majesty’s subjects. The Czar, out of his mere motion, and by special favour, the value of which is no doubt properly appreciated by the persons interested, has made a difference in the punishments inflicted on laymen and on clergymen. The Russian priest is not liable to be scourged to death by the knout; nor to be beaten to a jelly by a club, like the other members of the orthodox faith. Yet this privilege, we fear, is more specious than real. It does not survive the sacerdotal character; and as this may be suspended or annihilated at the pleasure of the Synod, or at the death of the popess, the exemption from the knout and the baten is an extremely uncertain privilege. The rule of the Russian Church, which makes the priestly character, indelible in other communions, to depend on so frail a tenure as the life of the partner, is most curious, and must perpetuate those vices which we have already noticed. The pastor who loses his wife must at once abandon his sacred functions, and set himself to some other pursuit, if he be still in the force of health and manhood; if he be aged or infirm, his lot is hard indeed. When the sacerdotal office is forfeited by some very grave offence, hard labour for life, or the distractions of a campaign in the Caucasus in one of the condemned regiments, with glimpses of the knout, form the hopeless future of the unhappy wretch who, but a few months before, was dispensing the sacraments at the altar. We may add, that the wives and widows of the priests, and their young children, enjoy, by a pious dispensation of the head of the Church of Russia, an exemption from the knout. The children, moreover, are exempt from the payment of imposts and military enlistment.

The sects that have started into life since the seventeenth century are comprised by the established or official church of Russia in the sweeping designation of roskolnicki, or schismatical; but the term is rejected with indignation by the parties to whom it is applied. They refuse, as a base and groundless calumny, the term schismatical, and claim for their own special qualification that of Starowertzi, or Ancient believers. They have also, no less than their predecessors, been the object of the severity of the government. Every opportunity has been laid hold of to crush them; and in the revolt of the Strelitz, not only were ruinous fines imposed on them, but many of their leaders were imprisoned, exiled, hanged, or poniarded, by order of Peter I. Severity being of no avail, milder measures were resorted to. A compromise was proposed in the reign of Catherine II., and after a show of examination, several of their less objectionable doctrines were allowed to pass muster as orthodox, and the variations in their liturgy received, on condition that their priests submitted to receive orders from the prelates of the Synod. As an additional inducement, they were promised that ordination should be conferred according to the sectarian, and not the established rite; that their usages should be respected, and no interference take place in the education of their clergy. But so great was the animosity that no concession could win, no kindness soften them, and the experiment of gaining over this stray flock to the fold failed totally. At an earlier period Starowertzi convents were erected in the deep recesses of the forests in the northern provinces of Russia. These convents were soon demolished, and their prelates and abbots banished, or otherwise removed. Yet for many years their religious necessities were supplied by priests ordained by the Starowertzi bishops; and, since their death, pastors are recruited from the many seceders from the orthodox church. In spite of the difficulties the sect has to contend with, and the incessant vigilance and rigour of the authorities, it possesses a mysterious influence, which is said to be felt even in the councils of the empire. It is believed that no important reform is ever attempted, no change in the internal administration of the country takes effect, until the opinions of the chiefs of this formidable party are ascertained, and the impression likely to be made upon the mass of their followers. In all social relations, in all matters connected with everyday life and business, it is affirmed that the Starowertzi are trustworthy and honourable. They are not habitually mendacious or deceitful, like the more civilised classes of his Imperial Majesty’s subjects; and the more closely the lower orders resemble the Starowertzi the better they are. In education they are also superior to the mass of the Russians. Among them there are few who have not learned to read and write, though even in the acquisition of this elementary instruction their religious prejudices prevail. They make use only of the Sclavonic dialect, the modern Russian being regarded as heretical. They are familiar with the Bible, and commit some portions of it to memory, which they recite with what the French would term onction; neither are they despicable opponents to encounter on the field of theological controversy. One of the principal seats of Starowertzism was in the midst of those vast and dismal swamps which extend towards the Frozen Ocean, on the European side of the great Oural chain, and on the banks of the river which discharges its waters into the Caspian; in the government of Saratoff, more than four hundred miles to the south-east of Moscow; and among the Cossack tribes that wander near the Volga and the Terek, close to the military line which extends in front of the Caucasus, are to be found numerous disciples. But for many years the great centre of Starowertzism was on the Irghis. On its banks four great monasteries once rose, and their inmates found a never-failing supply from the deserters of the army, and the fugitives from the wilderness and the knout of Siberia. Priests of the official church, excited by fanaticism or degraded for their vices, and monks expelled from their convents, were received with open arms as welcome converts. Their numbers increased so rapidly as to give serious alarm to the governors, and in 1838 a razzia was proclaimed against these religious fortresses. Strong bodies of troops were sent against them; the convents were pillaged, and then given to the flames, and the inmates were either sent to the army, or driven into the impenetrable wilds of Siberia. The doctrines of the sect have chiefly spread in the rural districts, and among the lower classes of tradesmen. In the convents for females (for Starowertzism has also its nuns), the only occupation consists in multiplying copies of their liturgy, for no religious work is allowed to be printed. The Starowertzi divide the inhabitants of the earth into three great classes—the Slaves, by them termed Slovaise, or Speakers; the Nemtzi, or Mutes, whom they regard as little above heathens; and all the Orientals are, without distinction, called by the general designation of Mussulmans. The rite of baptism is performed by immersion—they admit the validity of no other; but in no case do they recognise it when administered by the orthodox Russian, and all converts must be rebaptised before admission. It is a curious fact, almost incredible, were we not assured of its exactness on good authority, that though their spiritual directors belong mostly to the scum of the Russian clergy—degraded priests or monks—the Starowertzi are the least immoral of all the sects into which the orthodox church has been broken up.

The sect which more closely approximates in fundamentals to the established church is that which terms itself the Blagosslowenni (the Blessed); and so slight is the difference between them, that in the official nomenclature they are designated as the Jedinowertzi, or the Uniform Believers. In essential points of doctrine the difference is not great, in some almost imperceptible, though the ceremonial varies notably from that which is recognised by the Holy Synod. They make the sign of the cross in a different manner from the orthodox. They denounce the shaving the beard as a sin of the greatest enormity. Some other peculiarities are worth noting: they repeat the name of Jesus in three distinct parts; walk in procession in their places of worship from right to left, and, taking their ground on the text of Scripture which says that that which enters at the mouth is not sinful, but that which issues from it, they denounce the practice of smoking as a crime. There is another point, which we fear would be unpopular among our fellow-subjects in Ireland: the Blessed attribute a diabolical origin to that useful root the potato, and, what we believe has been strenuously maintained, though in a different spirit, by some Irish antiquarian, they pretend to prove that the potato was actually the fruit with which Eve was easily seduced by the wily serpent, and which our first mother persuaded her confiding husband to partake of. This sect reprobates the reforms attempted by Peter I., and they are not to this day reconciled to the Emperor Nicholas for not wearing the costume, and bearing the title of the Belvi Tzar, or the White Czar.

The Starrobriadtzi, or the Observers of the ancient rite, are an offshoot of the Starowertzi, but are still more exclusive and intolerant, and much more hostile to the official church. The scum of the orthodox priesthood are sure to find a welcome with them, and the more degraded they are the better. Every candidate for admission must formally recant his previous heresy—for such they term the orthodox dogma.

The most numerous of all these sects is one which is termed the Bespopertchine (Without priests). They not only reject ordination as conferred by the orthodox bishop, but dispense altogether with clergy as a distinct body. The sect is subdivided into several fractions, each known by the name of its founder, such as the Philipperes, the Theodosians, the Abakounians, &c., &c. They anticipate a general conversion of the reprobates,—that is, all who are not of their sect, whether Christian or Infidel—by reason or by force; and believe that the time is at hand when the errors of Nicon, the Luther of the Russo-Greek church, will be solemnly abjured by Russia; that a regenerated order of ecclesiastical superintendents will come from the East, when their own sect, the only true church of God, will reign triumphant wherever the name of Russia is heard. The reign of Antichrist began with Nicon; it still subsists, and will endure until the advent of the Lord, who is to smite the unbelievers, and scatter the darkness that envelopes the earth. Though a regularly ordained priesthood is not recognised, yet a sort of religious organisation is admitted by the Philippon section of it. Instead of the popes of the orthodox church, they have a class of men whom they term Stariki, or Elders, and who are selected from a number of candidates. The ceremony of installation consists in a few words of prayer, and the accolade in the presence of the congregation. The elders, who are distinguished by a particular costume, have no regular stipend, but subsist entirely on alms. In case of misconduct, they are not only deprived of their office, but expelled altogether from the community. The Philippons retain the rite of confession; but the avowal of their sins is made, not to a living man, but to an image, which acts by way of conductor to the pardon which is sent down from heaven. An elder, however, stands by as a witness of the confession and forgiveness; and while the long story of offences, mortal or venial, is unfolded, his duty consists in crying out at regular intervals, “May your sins be forgiven!” The simple exclamation, in the presence of three witnesses, that a man takes a woman to wife, is the only ceremony required for marriage, nor is it indispensable that the elder should be present. The portion of the Bible translated by Saint Cyril is the only part of it they retain. Their doctrine of the procession of the Holy Ghost is the same as that of the Greek Church. They believe that the souls of the dead are sunk in a profound lethargy from the moment they quit the body until the general judgment, to which they will be summoned by the archangel’s trumpet. On that awful day the souls of the wicked only are to resume their bodies, and pass into eternal fire. Their fasts, which comprise a third of the year, are of the strictest. They rigorously abstain from malt liquors; and though, on certain specified occasions, wine is permitted, yet the moderate draught must be administered from the hand of one of their own sect. In the matter of oaths they are quite as rigid as the Society of Friends. They are distinguished by no family name, but only by that received at their birth. Their differences are all settled before a tribunal composed of an elder and two or three of the sect, who must, however, be fathers of families; and from this decision there is seldom an appeal. Between husband and wife a complete community of goods exists, and the surviving partner inherits all.

The Theodosians do not much differ from the Philippons. Their women, however, have a separate place of worship from the men, where the service is celebrated by ancient maidens, called Christova Neviestu, or the Betrothed of Christ. The Theodosians have a large hospital in the city of Moscow, with two magnificent churches. The former affords accommodation for more than a thousand patients. Communism has penetrated into all these sects. Among the subdivisions of the great sect of the Starowertzi marriage is not regarded as a bond which lasts for life, or which can only be severed by divorce. A man and woman agree to live together for one or more years, as it may suit their convenience. They separate on the expiry of their contract, and become free to receive a similar offer from any one else, while the issue of such temporary marriages belongs to the public, without any special notice from the parents.

The Douchobertzi, or Wrestlers in Spirit, are, like the Malakani, or Drinkers of Milk, divided into seven fractions, and are remarkable for their hostility to the official church. Their doctrines consist of the leading points of the old heresies, and they constitute a theological system more developed, though not more uniform, than any of the previous sects. Some of their doctrines are so vague, and so inconsistent, that what is regarded as fundamental in one district, or even in one village, is considered as corrupt or as unimportant in another not perhaps a league off. Different from the Starowertzi, who strictly adhere to traditional observances, they are incessantly making innovations in the fundamental doctrines of the orthodox church. The Starowertzi are particularly scrupulous about form and ceremonial; the Douchobertzi, on the contrary, reject all forms of worship, and spiritualise the church. The influence of these spiritualists is not yet felt to any considerable extent in Russia. Though offshoots of the Malakani, or Milk Drinkers, these two sects hate each other most cordially.

The use of milk preparations during Lent, and on days of rigid abstinence, explains the name by which the Malakani are known to their adversaries, but the designation by which they describe themselves is Istinie Christiane, or True Christians. They are of modern date, and first became known in the middle of the last century, when they appeared in the government of Tambon. They soon spread into neighbouring governments, and their most successful proselytism has been among the peasantry. Three large villages in the Taurida are entirely peopled by this sect. Like the Latin Church, they admit seven sacraments, but they receive them only in spirit. As with them the “church” is merely a spiritual assemblage of believers, they have no temples for the celebration of divine worship. Images they do not tolerate, and swearing on any account, or in any form, is severely interdicted. One of their leading doctrines is, that with them alone Jesus Christ will reign on the earth. A precursor of that spiritual millennium, who assumed to be the prophet Elias, appeared in 1833. He exhorted the Malakani to prepare, by rigid fasting and mortification, for the advent of the Saviour, which would take place in two years. A brother fanatic or accomplice, under the biblical appellation of Enoch, went on a similar mission, to announce the tidings to the barbarians of western Europe. When the duty of the original impostor, whose real name was Beloireor, was accomplished, he announced his approaching return to heaven in a chariot. Thousands of the Malakani assembled to witness the ascent of the prophet, who presented himself to the kneeling multitude clothed in flowing robes of white and blue, and seated in a car drawn by white steeds. The new Elias rose, spread out his arms, and waved them up and down, as a bird his wings when preparing to mount into the sky. He bounded from his chariot, but instead of soaring gracefully to the clouds, fell heavily and awkwardly in the mire, and killed a woman who stood by clinging to the wheels. The multitude had fasted, prayed, wept, and watched, and their imaginations had become excited to the highest pitch. Enraged at the disappointment, or convinced of the imposture of the prophet, they rose against him, and would have slain him, had he not contrived to escape the first burst of their fury. He was afterwards caught, and, with more judgment than could be expected from them, they contented themselves with handing him over to the tribunals to pay the penalties of imposture. He endured a long imprisonment; but neither his disgrace nor the fear of the knout prevented him from predicting to the last day of his existence the near advent of the millennium. His persistence conciliated former, and obtained him new disciples. They became more numerous after his death; but the scene of their labours was changed; they were forced to emigrate to Georgia, where they still carry on their propagandism.

It is a curious fact that, when Napoleon invaded Russia, the great captain was regarded by the Malakani as “the Lion of the Valley of Josaphat,” whose mission was to overthrow the “false emperor,” and restore to power the “White Czar.” A numerous deputation from the government of Tambon, preceded by heralds clothed in white, was sent forth to meet him. Their privilege did not protect them. Napoleon, or his marshals, had no great sympathy with fanatics; they were considered as prisoners of war: one only escaped, the others were never heard of again.

The Douchobertzi are the illuminati of Russia, and the term applied to them by the common people is Yarmacon, or Free Masons. Though this sect really dates from the middle of the eighteenth century, it affects to trace its origin to a very remote period, claiming as its founders the youths who were flung into the furnace by order of Nebuchadnezzar. The corruption and fall of the soul of man, long previous to the creation of the material world, forms the basis of their faith. The “Son of God” means the universal spirit of humanity; and the assumption of the form of man was in order that each individual member of mankind might also possess the attributes of the Son of God. The Douchobertzi admit that in the person of Christ the world has been saved; but the Christ whose death is recorded in Holy Writ was not the real Redeemer; it was not He who made atonement for man; that belongs only to the ideal Christ. Forms of worship, and, of course, temples, are rejected by them. Each member of the sect is himself a temple, where the “Eternal” loves to be glorified, and man is at once temple, priest, and victim; or, in other words, the heart is the altar, the will the offering, and the spirit of man the pontiff. They are all equal in the sight of God, and they admit the supremacy of no creature on the earth. The more rigorous of the Douchobertzi carry their severity of morals to an extreme, and with them the most innocent and most necessary recreations are heinous crimes. But the majority pass to the other extreme, and strange stories are told of the orgies practised in secret under the guise of devotional exercises. The Douchobertzi, like other fanatics, expect the triumph of their own sect over the world. Even now the fulness of time is nigh at hand; and when the awful moment comes, they will rise in their accumulated and resistless force, and spread terror over the earth. Their chief will be the only potentate who shall reign in unbounded power, and all mankind will gather round the footsteps of his throne, bow their heads to the dust, veil their eyes before the glory that flashes fiercely from his brow, and proclaim his boundless power and his reign without end. But this triumph must be preceded by a season of trial and sorrow. Their Czar must previously undertake a mighty struggle against all misbelievers. It will be terrible, but brief; the Douchobertzi shall, of course, win the victory, and, in the person of their chief, mount the throne of the world to reign for ever and for ever! The Russian authorities have repeatedly attempted to crush a sect whose tendencies are so menacing; but the task is difficult against a body who have no acknowledged leader, no priesthood, and no place of worship. Among the few puritans who take no pains to conceal their doctrines, they have to a certain extent succeeded. One of the most eminent of them was a man named Kaponstin, who was reverenced as a divinity. In consequence of some dissensions with the Malakani, to whom he originally belonged, he separated from them, preached new and still more extravagant doctrines. Numerous proselytes quitted with him their old villages, and took up their abode in the Taurida. There they founded nine villages, which a few years ago contained a population of nine thousand souls, professing the more rigid doctrines of the Douchobertzi. Kaponstin had been a sub-officer in the imperial guard, was of studious habits, and of the most scrupulous exactness in the performance of his military duties. His fanaticism came on him all of a sudden. One day, in the guardroom, he stood up among the soldiers, whom he had previously won over to his doctrine, and summoned them to fall down on the ground and adore him, as he was the Christ—a command which most of them instantly obeyed. Kaponstin was degraded from his rank, and committed to prison; but on its being found that he was totally unfitted for a military life, he was released, and he at once resumed his preachings. Kaponstin taught that the Divine soul of Christ had, from the beginning of the world, dwelt in a succession of men, who alone were, each in turn, the true heads of the church. As mankind degenerated, and became unworthy of the sacred deposit, false popes usurped the dignity and attributes of the Son of God. The Douchobertzi were now the sole and true guardians of the treasure which especially dwelt in him as the incarnation of the sect. His followers believed him at his word, and fell down and worshipped him. Kaponstin again attracted the attention of the authorities, and was again thrown into prison. A large sum of money, the produce of the contributions of hundreds of thousands, was offered as a bribe to the gaoler—and when did a Russian functionary refuse a bribe? He regained his liberty, fled to the forests, was once more hunted down, but baffled the vengeance of his pursuers. He shut himself up in a cavern in the remote districts of the Taurida, and under the vigilant eye of his followers, by none of whom his secret was revealed, passed there the remaining years of his life, preaching, believed, and adored. His retreat the police did not or would not discover; when he died is known only to a few. The mantle of Kaponstin was assumed by his son, who proved himself unworthy of wearing it. At the age of fifteen he was received by his father’s disciples as his true successor, and the Christ of the Douchobertzi. At his installation the grand council of the sect assembled, and the first resolution adopted was that ten concubines should be allotted to their youthful prophet, Hilarion Kaponstin. He did not merit the reverence paid him, nor did he inherit a particle of the intellect or the courage of his father. From the day of his installation he gave himself up to the most debasing sensuality. The father had instituted a council, composed of forty members, twelve of whom represented the apostles. This council took advantage of the incapacity of its boy-prophet, and from being merely a legislative, assumed the functions of an executive power, which it exercised most tyrannically. It soon became the scourge of the community. As the members of the council were only divine by reflection, it was no crime to shake off its usurped authority, and the sect rose in rebellion. The tyrants were seized, tried in secret conclave, and sentence of death pronounced against them, for usurpation and cruelty. A lonely isle near the mouth of the Malotschua was selected for the execution, and there they suffered the last penalty. There, also, during the two years which followed that event, more than five hundred members of the sect were put to death, suspected of having revealed the secrets of its orgies. They were drowned in the stream, or perished by the halter or the knife; at all events, they disappeared, and were never more heard of. These doings, even in that remote district, could not long be kept secret. The police bestirred themselves; the isle where so many deeds of murder had taken place was visited, and closely searched; and numerous bodies that had apparently been buried alive, carcasses strangled or hacked to pieces, and mutilated limbs, were found in abundance. Some years were spent in the inquiry, and the issue was, that at the close of 1839 the government ordered the complete expulsion of the Douchobertzi of the Malotschua. Many withered and perished amid the snows of the Caucasus. Their nominal chief, Hilarion Kaponstin, died in 1841, at Achaltisk, in Georgia, leaving behind him two infants, in whom the Douchobertzi still hope to see their Christ revived.

Those we have sketched are but a few specimens of the long catalogue of sects who disavow the dogmas of the Church of St Petersburg, and denounce its Holy Synod. There are others that work in obscurity, but with perseverance, and gradually, but steadily, sap its foundations. Most of those doctrines lead to the complete disruption of all moral bonds, and the dissolution of society; and sensuality, plunder, and cruelty seem to pervade the gloomy reveries in which the Russian peasant indulges. We have reason to believe that the stirring of that dangerous spirit which aims at the overthrow of all authority, has given serious uneasiness to the Russian government; and that the conspiracies which have more than once been found to exist in the army, are traceable to that dark and stern fanaticism! Education, of course, is the remedy for the evil. In Russia, however, the maxim of Bacon is reversed, and there ignorance, not knowledge, is believed to be power. If education once teach the Russian serf to regard the Czar as less than the Deity, how long would that despotism endure?

Such, then, is the “orthodoxy” which the Czar would extend over southern Europe, whose doctrines and whose unity he would impose on Greece; and such the religious protectorate with which the Greek Christians, the subjects of the Porte, are menaced. Those pretensions have no foundation, no justification, in civil or religious law; they are not based on the laws of any civilised community. The orthodox Church of Russia is but the erring offspring of the Church of Constantinople; and she is branded on the forehead by that Church with schism. It was from the Church of Constantinople that, down to the fifteenth century, she received her patriarchs, who never advanced pretensions to equality with the Byzantine pontiffs. What they might have attained to, it is now useless to inquire, for the link which bound that Church to her parent was, as we have shown, severed for ever by Peter the Great. By the same right as the Czar, the sovereign of France might claim a protectorate over the Catholics of Belgium or Northern Germany; or call upon the Autocrat himself to render an account of the Poles, or others of his Catholic subjects. Russia has no claim to eminence in piety, in learning, in antiquity, in superior morality, or in extent of privilege. Her Church has been for years forced to maintain a separate struggle against sects more or less hostile to her Synod, and to her temporal authority. Each prelate, each dignitary of her establishment, is, with respect to the Czar, precisely what the meanest serf is to his lord, and the mass of her priests are sunk in ignorance. The question of the Holy Shrines is invariably the mask assumed by Russia to cover her designs in the East. The right on which the nations of the West claim to protect the Cross from the Infidel dates from the Crusades. Among the hosts which the enthusiasm and eloquence of the Hermit sent forth to do battle with the Mussulman, and to liberate from the cruel yoke of the misbelievers the land which witnessed the mystery of the Redemption, the name of Russia is not to be found. These barbarians had then their necks bowed under the rule of the Tartars; they were then crowding to the tents of the Khans, kissing the hoofs of their masters’ horses, or presenting, as slaves, the draught of mares’ milk, too happy if permitted to lick from the dust the drops that fell from the bowl.

Perhaps we ought to offer an apology for the length of this paper. But we were desirous of showing, first, that the homogeneity of the Russian and Eastern Churches, on which the Czar lays his strongest claim to the protectorate he demands, has no foundation in fact, and that the Christian communities on which he would impose his protection deny the orthodoxy of his faith, and regard him as the usurper of spiritual power; second, that the doctrines of the Synod of St Petersburg are denounced by Russians themselves, and the establishment opposed by a formidable sectarianism, and that that Church is itself rather in a condition to require protection against its internal enemies than to afford it to others; third, that even supposing the Russian and Eastern Churches to be identical, the protectorate in question would, in consequence of the temporal privileges preserved by the Patriarch of Constantinople, as already noticed, be the positive introduction of a dangerous foreign influence in the domestic administration of the Ottoman empire, and that the Sultan would thereby become the vassal of the Czar; fourth, that as there are numerous Christian subjects of the Sublime Porte who do not belong to the Greek communion, their protector, where protection is needed, cannot be the Czar; and, fifth, that the semi-independent Moldo-Wallachians also disavow the doctrines of the Russian Church, and reject her protection.

We do not pretend to speak with enthusiasm of the Ottomans, but it must be admitted, that what has occurred since the commencement of the present quarrel is not to their disadvantage. Unlike the Czar, the Sultan has made no appeal to the mere fanaticism of his people, nor has he attempted to arouse the fierceness of religious hatred against the Giaour, which he might have done. His appeal has been to their feeling of nationality—such an appeal as every government would make in similar circumstances. Nor are the events which have taken place on the Danube likely to inspire the world with contempt for Ottoman valour and patriotism. If left alone to struggle with their powerful adversary, the Turks must succumb; but in the present campaign they have, at all events, proved themselves to be good soldiers.

The momentous question of a general war is, at the moment we write these lines, trembling in the balance; and the decision is with Austria. But whatever be the phase into which the great Eastern question is about to enter, we have one decided opinion on the policy of Russia. It is thus explained, not by a hostile or a foreign writer, but by a Russian historian, the eloquent Karamsin, in the following brief sentences: “The object and the character of our military policy has invariably been, to seek to be at peace with everybody, and to make conquests without war; always keeping ourselves on the defensive, placing no faith in the friendship of those whose interests do not accord with our own, and losing no opportunity of injuring them, without ostensibly breaking our treaties with them.”

THE TWO ARNOLDS.[^[3]]

Nature, it would seem, has fortunately provided against the simultaneous development of kindred genius and intellect amongst human families. Such, at least, is the general rule, and it is a beneficent one. For if a sudden frenzy were to seize the whole clans of Brown, or Smith, or Campbell, or Thomson—were the divine afflatus breathed at once upon the host, more numerous than that of Sennacherib, of the inheritors of the above names, undoubtedly such a confusion would ensue as has not been witnessed since the day of the downfall of Babel. Passing over three of these great divisions of the human race, as located in the British Islands, let us confine our illustration simply to the sons of Diarmid. Without estimating the number of Campbells who are scattered over the face of the earth, we have reason to believe that in Argyllshire alone there are fifty thousand of that name. Out of each fifty, at least twenty are Colins. If, then, a poetical epidemic, only half as contagious as the measles, were to visit our western county, we should behold the spectacle of a thousand Colin Campbells rushing frantically, and with a far cry towards Lochow, and simultaneously twangling on the clairshach. Fame, in the form of a Druidess, might announce, from the summit of Kilchurn Castle, the name of the one competitor who was entitled to the wreath; but twice five hundred Colins would press forward at the call, and the question of poetic superiority could only be decided by the dirk. Fortunately, as we have already observed, nature provides against such a contingency. Glancing over the cosmopolitan directory, she usually takes care that no two living bards shall bear precisely the same appellation; and if, sometimes, she seems to permit an unusual monopoly of some kind of talent in the same family or sept, we almost never find that the baptismal appellations correspond. Thus, in the days of James I., there were no less than three poetical Fletchers—John, the dramatist; Phineas, the author of the Purple Island; and Giles, the brother of Phineas. Also there were two Beaumonts—Francis, the ally of the greater Fletcher, and Sir John, his brother. In our own time, the poetic mantle seems to have fallen extensively on the shoulders of the Tennysons. Besides Prince Alfred, whom we all honour and admire, and to whom more than three-fourths of our young versifiers pay homage by slavishly imitating his style, there was Charles, whose volume, published about the same time as the firstling of his brother, was deemed by competent judges to exhibit remarkable promise; and within the last few months, another Tennyson—Frederick—has bounded like a grasshopper into the ring, and is now piping away as clearly as any cicala. And here, side by side, amidst the mass of minstrelsy which cumbers our table, lie two volumes, on the title-page of each of which is inscribed the creditable name of Arnold.

We have not for a considerable time held much communing with the rising race of poets, and we shall at once proceed to state the reason why. Even as thousands of astronomers are nightly sweeping the heavens with their telescopes, in the hope of discovering some new star or wandering comet, so of late years have shoals of small critics been watching for the advent of some grand poetical genius. These gentlemen, who could not, if their lives depended on it, elaborate a single stanza, have a kind of insane idea that they may win immortal fame by being the first to perceive and hail the appearance of the coming bard. Accordingly, scarce a week elapses without a shout being raised at the birth of a thin octavo. “Apollodorus, or the Seraph of Gehenna, a Dramatic Mystery, by John Tunks,” appears; and we are straightway told, on the authority of Mr Guffaw, the celebrated critic, that:—“It is a work more colossal in its mould than the undefined structures of the now mouldering Persepolis. Tunks may not, like Byron, possess the hypochondriacal brilliancy of a blasted firework, or pour forth his floods of radiant spume with the intensity of an artificial volcano. He does not pretend to the spontaneous combustion of our young friend Gander Rednag (who, by the way, has omitted to send us his last volume), though we almost think that he possesses a diviner share of the poet’s ennobling lunacy. He does not dive so sheer as the author of Festus into the bosom of far unintelligibility, plummet-deep beyond the range of comprehension, or the shuddering gaze of the immortals. He may not be endowed with the naked eagle-eye of Gideon Stoupie, the bard of Kirriemuir, whose works we last week noticed, and whose grand alcoholic enthusiasm shouts ha, ha, to the mutchkin, as loudly as the call of the trumpet that summons Behemoth from his lair. He may not, like the young Mactavish, to whose rising talent we have also borne testimony, be able to swathe his real meaning in the Titanic obscurity of the parti-coloured Ossianic mysticism. He may not, like Shakespeare, &c. &c.” And then, having occupied many columns in telling us whom Mr Tunks does not resemble, the gifted Guffaw concludes by an assurance that Tunks is Tunks, and that his genius is at this moment flaring over the universe, like the meteor-standard of the Andes!

Desirous, from the bottom of our heart, to do all proper justice to Tunks, we lay down this furious eulogium, and turn to the volume. We find, as we had anticipated, that poor Tunks is quite guiltless of having written a single line of what can, by any stretch of conscience, be denominated poetry—that the passages which Guffaw describes as being so ineffably grand, are either sheer nonsense or exaggerated conceits—and that a very excellent young man, who might have gained a competency by following his paternal trade, is in imminent peril of being rendered an idiot for life by the folly of an unscrupulous scribbler. Would it be right, under those circumstances, to tell Tunks our mind, and explain to him the vanity of his ways? If we were to do so, the poor lad would probably not believe us; for he has drunk to the dregs the poisoned chalice of Guffaw, and is ready, like another Homer, to beg for bread and make minstrelsy through innumerable cities. If we cannot hope to reclaim him, it would be useless cruelty to hurt his feelings, especially as Tunks is doing no harm to any one beyond himself. So we regard him much as one regards a butterfly towards the close of autumn, with the wish that the season of his enjoyment might be prolonged, but with the certainty that the long nights and frosty evenings are drawing nigh. Little, indeed, do the tribe of the Guffaws care for the mischief they are doing.

Or take another case. Let us suppose the appearance on the literary stage of a young man really endowed with poetic sensibility—one whose powers are yet little developed, but who certainly gives promise, conditionally on proper culture, of attaining decided eminence. Before we know anything about him, he is somehow or other committed to the grasp of the Guffaws. They do not praise—they idolise him. All the instances of youthful genius are dragged forth to be debased at his feet. He is told, in as many words, that Pope was a goose, Chatterton a charlatan, Kirke White a weakling, and Keats a driveller, compared with him,—at any rate, that the early effusions of those poets are not fit to be spoken of in the same breath with what he has written at a similar age. There are no bounds to the credulity of a poet of one-and-twenty. He accepts the laudation of those sons of Issachar as gospel, and, consequently, is rather surprised that a louder blast has not been blown through the trumpet of fame. His eulogists are so far from admitting that he has any faults, that they hold him up as a pattern, thereby exciting his vanity to such an extent that an honest exposition of his faults would appear to him a gross and malignant outrage. It is really very difficult to know what to do in such cases. On the one hand, it is a pity, without an effort, to allow a likely lad to be flyblown and spoiled by the buzzing blue-bottles of literature; on the other, it is impossible to avoid seeing that the mischief has been so far done, that any remedy likely to be effectual must cause serious pain. To tie up a Guffaw to the stake, and to inflict upon him condign punishment—a resolution which we intend to carry into effect some fine morning—would be far less painful to us than the task or duty of wounding the sensitiveness of a youth who may possibly be destined to be a poet.

Setting, for the present, the Guffaws, or literary Choctaws, aside, we have a word to say to a very different class of critics, or rather commentators; and we desire to do this in the utmost spirit of kindness. Whether Aristotle, who could no more have perpetrated a poem than have performed the leger-de-main of the Wizard of the North, was justified in writing his “Poetics,” we cannot exactly say. More than one of his treatises upon subjects with which he hardly could have been practically conversant, are still quoted in the schools; but we suspect that his authority—paramount, almost, during the middle ages, because there were then no other guides, and because he found his way into Western Europe chiefly through the medium of the Moors—is fast waning, and in matters of taste ought not now to be implicitly received. Aristotle, however, was a great man, far greater than Dr Johnson. The latter compiled a Dictionary; Aristotle, by his own efforts, aspired to make, and did make, a sort of Encyclopædia. But he composed several of his treatises, not because he conceived that he was the person best qualified to be the exponent of the subject, but because no one really qualified had attempted before him to expound it. We have seen, and perused with real sorrow, a recent treatise upon “Poetics,” which we cannot do otherwise, conscientiously, than condemn. The author is no doubt entitled to praise on account of his metaphysical ability, which we devoutly trust he may be able to turn to some useful purpose; but as to poetry, its forms, development, machinery, or application, he is really as ignorant as a horse. It is perfectly frightful to see the calmness with which one of these young students of metaphysics sits down to explain the principles of poetry, and the self-satisfied air with which he enunciates the results of his wonderful discoveries. Far be it from us, when “our young men dream dreams,” to rouse them rudely from their slumber; but we hold it good service to give them a friendly shake when we observe them writhing under the pressure of Ephialtes.

It is one thing to descant upon poetry, and another to compose it. After long meditation on the subject, we have arrived at the conclusion that very little benefit indeed is to be derived from the perusal of treatises, and that the only proper studies for a young poet are the book of nature, and the works of the greatest masters. To that opinion, we are glad to observe, one of our Arnolds seriously inclines. Matthew—whom we shall take up first, because he is an old acquaintance—has written an elaborate preface, in which he complains of the bewildering tone of the criticism of the present day. He remarks with perfect justice, that the ceaseless babbling about art has done an incalculable deal of harm, by drawing the attention of young composers from the study and contemplation of their subjects, and leading them to squander their powers upon isolated passages. There is much truth in the observations contained in the following extract, albeit it is in direct opposition to the daily practice of the Guffaws:—

“We can hardly, at the present day, understand what Menander meant when he told a man who inquired as to the progress of his comedy, that he had finished it, not having yet written a single line, because he had constructed the action of it in his mind. A modern critic would have assured him that the merit of his piece depended on the brilliant things which arose under his pen as he went along. We have poems which seem to exist merely for the sake of single lines and passages; not for the sake of producing any total impression. We have critics who seem to direct their attention merely to detached expressions,—to the language about the action, not to the action itself. I verily think that the majority of them do not in their hearts believe that there is such a thing as a total-impression to be derived from a poem at all, or to be demanded from a poet; they think the term a commonplace of metaphysical criticism. They will permit the poet to select any action he pleases, and to suffer that action to go as it will, provided he gratifies them with occasional bursts of fine writing, and with a shower of isolated thoughts and images. That is, they permit him to leave their poetical sense ungratified, provided that he gratifies their rhetorical sense and their curiosity. Of his neglecting to gratify these there is little danger; he needs rather to be warned against the danger of attempting to gratify these alone; he needs rather to be perpetually reminded to prefer his action to everything else; so to treat this, as to permit its inherent excellencies to develop themselves, without interruption from the intrusion of his personal peculiarities—most fortunate when he most entirely succeeds in effacing himself, and in enabling a noble action to subsist as it did in nature.”

It would be well for the literature of the age if sound criticism of this description were more common. Mr Arnold is undoubtedly correct in holding that the first duty of the poet, after selecting his subject, is to take pains to fashion it symmetrically, and that any kind of ornament which tends to divert the attention from the subject is positively injurious to the poem. This view, however, is a great deal too refined for the comprehension of the Guffaws. They show you a hideous misshapen image, with diamonds for eyes, rubies stuck into the nostrils, and pearls inserted in place of teeth, and ask you to admire it! Admire what? Not the image certainly, for anything more clumsy and absurd it is impossible to imagine: if it is meant that we are to admire the jewels, we are ready to do so, as soon as they are properly disposed, and made the ornaments of a stately figure. The necklace which would beseem the bosom of Juno, and send lustre even to the queen of the immortals, cannot give anything but additional hideousness to the wrinkled folds of an Erichtho. Mr Arnold, who has inherited his father’s admiration for ancient literature, makes out the best case we remember to have seen, in vindication of the Greek drama. It is as follows:—

“For what reason was the Greek tragic poet confined to so limited a range of subjects? Because there are so few actions which unite in themselves, in the highest degree, the conditions of excellence; and it was not thought that on any but an excellent subject could an excellent poem be constructed. A few actions, therefore, eminently adapted for tragedy, maintained almost exclusive possession of the Greek tragic stage; their significance appeared inexhaustible; they were as permanent problems, perpetually offered to the genius of every fresh poet. This too is the reason of what appears to us moderns a certain baldness of expression in Greek tragedy; of the triviality with which we often reproach the remarks of the chorus, where it takes place in the dialogue; that the action itself, the situation of Orestes, or Merope, or Alcmæon, was to stand the central point of interest, unforgotten, absorbing, principal; that no accessories were for a moment to distract the spectator’s attention from this; that the tone of the parts was to be perpetually kept down, in order not to impair the grandiose effect of the whole. The terrible old mythic story on which the drama was founded, stood, before he entered the theatre, traced in its bare outlines upon the spectator’s mind; it stood in his memory as a group of statuary, faintly seen, at the end of a long and dark vista: then came the Poet, embodying outlines, developing situations, not a word wasted, not a sentiment capriciously thrown in: stroke upon stroke the drama proceeded; the light deepened upon the group; more and more it revealed itself to the rivetted gaze of the spectator; until at last, when the final words were spoken, it stood before him in broad sunlight, a model of immortal beauty.”

This is indeed criticism worth listening to, and the style of it is not less admirable than the matter. We do not, however, entirely go along with Mr Arnold in his decided preference for the antique drama. We never arise from the study of Greek tragedy without the impression that it is deficient in richness and flexibility. This, we think, is to be attributed in a great measure to its form, which is not natural; the members of the chorus being neither altogether actors, nor altogether disinterested spectators. They are interlopers between the audience and the actors, and detract from the interest of the latter by requiring and receiving explanation. That at least is our feeling after the perusal of Greek tragedy, but it by no means follows that the same impression was produced on the minds of a Greek audience. We agree with Professor Blackie that the grand works of the Attic three are to be regarded rather as operas than as tragedies, according to our modern acceptance of the term—that they were framed purposely for musical accompaniment and effect—and that, failing these, it is impossible for us to form an adequate estimate of their power in exciting sympathy or awakening emotion. “The man,” says the translator of Æschylus, “must certainly be strangely blinded by early classical prepossessions, if he fails to feel that, as a whole, a Greek tragedy, when set against the English composition of the same name, is exceedingly narrow in its conception, meagre in its furniture, monotonous in its character, unskilful in its execution, and not seldom feeble in its effect.” Most true—and for this reason, that the writer of English tragedy seeks no other vehicle of thought or idea than language; so that, except for scenic display, his play will give as much pleasure to, and produce nearly the same effect upon the mind, if read silently in the closet, as if brought upon the stage. It is not necessary, in order to appreciate Shakespeare, that we should have seen his dramas represented in the pomp and magnificence of the theatre. Whereas the Greek artist had to deal with the more complex material of words and music. Take away the latter, and you frustrate half his design; because he did not mean the words of the chorus to be studied as poems—he meant them to be heard with the full accompaniment of music. Those who are in the habit of frequenting the modern opera will readily understand our position. What can be finer than Norma, as represented on the stage, when Grisi or Caradori assumes the part of the prophetess, imprecates vengeance on the perfidious Pollio, and implores the forgiveness of the father? Higher tragedy than that can hardly be conceived—the effect upon the audience of the combined music and action is as powerful as though they had been listening to the greatest masterpiece of Shakespeare. But take the libretto of Norma—divest yourself of the musical association—study it in the closet—and we answer for it that no exercise of imagination on your part will enable you to endure it. And why is this? Simply because it was constructed as an opera, and because, by withdrawing the music, you destroy more than half the charm.

In dramatic compositions, where language alone can be employed as the vehicle of thought or sentiment, it is absolutely necessary that the expression should be bolder, the style more vivid, and the range of illustration larger than is requisite in the other kind where music is brought in aid of language, or rather where language is employed to assist the force of music. It seems therefore preposterous and contrary to reason, to expect that we should take as much delight or derive as high intellectual gratification from the bare perusal of a Greek skeleton play, as must have been felt by an Attic audience who witnessed its representation as a gorgeous national opera. It is even a greater artistical mistake to suppose that we should copy it implicitly. Alfieri indeed did so; but it is impossible to read one of his plays without experiencing a most chilly sensation. We entirely concur with what Mr Arnold has said regarding the importance of subject, symmetry, and design; but we differ from him as to the propriety of adhering to the nakedness of the Greeks. Let him compare—so far as that can be done with due allowance for the difference being narrative and dramatic poetry—the style of his early favourite Homer with that of Sophocles, and we think he will understand our meaning.

We confess to have been so much pleased with Mr Matthew Arnold’s preface, that we turned to his poetical performances with no slight degree of expectation. As we have already hinted, he is an old acquaintance, for we reviewed him in the Magazine some four or five years ago, when he appeared in the suspicious character of a Strayed Reveller. We then pointed out what we thought to be his faults, warned him as strongly as we could against his imitative tendencies, and, we hope, did justice to the genius which he evidently possessed and occasionally exhibited. Certainly we did not indulge in ecstasies; but we believed him capable of producing, through culture and study, something greatly superior to his early attempts, and we did not hesitate to say so. Since then, we are given to understand that he has published another volume of poems, which it was not our fortune to see; and the present is, with some additions, a collection of those poems which he considers to be his best, and which were contained in his earlier volumes. It is a hopeful sign of Mr M. Arnold that he is amenable to criticism. More than one of the poems which we noticed as absolutely bad, are omitted from the present collection; and therefore we are entitled to believe that, on mature consideration, he has assented to the propriety of our judgment. This is a good feature; for poets generally seem possessed with a tenfold share of stubbornness, and, like mothers, who always lavish their affections upon the most rickety of their offspring, are prompt to defend their worst effusions with almost superhuman pertinacity. It is because we feel a decided interest in Mr Arnold’s ultimate success that we again approach his poetry. We cannot conscientiously congratulate him on a present triumph—we cannot even say that he has improved upon his earliest effort; for the “Forsaken Merman,” which we noticed years ago, in terms of high commendation, is still the one gem of his collection; but we think that he may improve, and must improve, if he will only abandon all imitation, whether ancient or modern—identify himself with his situation—trust to natural impulse—and give art-theories to the winds. What he has to do is to follow the example of Menander, as quoted by himself. Let him, by all manner of means, be deliberate in the formation of his plan—let him fix what he is going to do, before he does anything—but let him not forget (what we fear he now forgets or does not know), that, in execution, the artist must beat on his own anvil, sweat at his own fire, and ply at his own forge. The poem of a master should bear as distinct and unmistakable marks of the hand that produced it, as a picture of Titian or Velasquez, a statue of Phidias, an altar-rail of Quentin Matsys, or a goblet of Benvenuto Cellini. Heaven only knows how many thousands of imitators have followed in the wake of these and other great original artists; but who cares for the imitations? No one, unless they are so good that they can be palmed off on purchasers under cover of the mighty names. Admit them to be imitations, and the merest tyro will hesitate to bid for them. It does seem to us that men of letters are slower than any other description of artists in perceiving the baneful effects of imitation. They do not appear to see this obvious truth, that, unless they can transcend their model, they are deliberately courting an inferior place. If they can transcend it, then of course they have won the day, but it must be by departing from, not by adhering to, the peculiarities of the model.

In so far as Mr Matthew Arnold is concerned, we do not intend these remarks to be applicable to his Greek choric imitations. We spoke of these before, and are willing to take them as classical experiments. Goethe, in his old age, was rather fond of this kind of amusement; and it came gracefully from the octogenarian, who, having won his fame as a Teuton, might in his latter days be allowed to indulge in any Hellenic exercitations. And as old age is privileged, so is extreme youth. The young student, with his head and imagination full of Sophocles and classical theories, even though he may push the latter beyond the verge of extravagance, is always an interesting object to the more experienced man of letters. Enthusiasm is never to be despised. It is the sign of a high and ardent spirit, and ought not to be met with the drenching operation of the bucket. But Mr M. Arnold is now considerably past his teens. He is before the public for the third time, and he still parades these Greek imitations, as if he were confident of their worth and power as English poems. So be it. We have nothing in regard to them to add to what we said before, except that a much higher artist than Mr M. Arnold must appear, before the British public will be convinced that such hobbling and unrhymed versification ought to supersede our own beautifully intoned and indigenous system of prosody.

Of the new poems contained in this collection, the most ambitious is entitled “Sohrab and Rustum, an Episode.” We like episodes, because they have the advantage of being short, and, moreover, if well constructed, are as symmetrical as poems of greater pretension. The story is a simple one, and yet contains in itself the elements of power. Sohrab, the son of the great Persian hero Rustum, by a princess of Koordistan, has never seen his father, but, like Telemachus, is in search of him. Being with the Tartar army during a campaign against the Persians, he conceives the idea of challenging the bravest champion of that host to single combat, in the hope that, if he is victor, Rustum may hear of and acknowledge him. If slain—

“Old man, the dead need no one, claim no kin.”

The challenge is given; but Sohrab was already known far and wide as a handy lad with the scimitar, and a powerful hurler of the spear; therefore the Persians, with their usual want of pluck, were exceedingly unwilling to encounter him. We subjoin Mr Arnold’s account of the panic:—

“But as a troop of pedlars from Cabool

Cross underneath the Indian Caucasus,

That vast sky-neighbouring mountain of milk snow,

Winding so high, that, as they mount, they pass

Long flocks of travelling birds dead on the snow,

Choked by the air; and scarce can they themselves

Slake their parch’d throats with sugar’d mulberries—

In single file they move, and stop their breath,

For fear they should dislodge the o’erhanging snows—

So the pale Persians held their breath with fear.

And to Ferood his brother chiefs come up

To counsel: Gudurz and Zoarrah came,

And Feraburz, who rul’d the Persian host

Second, and was the uncle of the king.”

Not one of these fellows with the jaw-breaking names could muster courage to come forth, like Goliath, against the dauntless David of the Tartars. Gudurz, however, bethinks him that Rustum had arrived in the camp the evening before, and of course he was the very man for the occasion; so he visits him immediately after breakfast. All heroes feed, or ought to feed, voraciously; and judging from appearances, Rustum was qualified to compete at a game of knife and fork with Achilles.

“And Gudurz entered Rustum’s tent, and found

Rustum: his morning meal was done, but still

The table stood beside him, charged with food;

A side of roasted sheep, and cakes of bread,

And dark-green melons.”

Possibly from the effects of repletion, Rustum for some time refuses to accept the championship, but is at last taunted into action and takes the field, but determines to fight unknown. We ought to mention here that Rustum, so far from suspecting his relationship with Sohrab, is unaware that he has any son at all. We must draw on Mr Arnold’s verse for the exordium to the combat.

“Like some young cypress, tall, and dark, and straight,

Which in a queen’s secluded garden throws

Its slight dark shadow on the moonlit turf,

By midnight, to a bubbling fountain’s sound—

So slender Sohrab seem’d, so softly rear’d.

And a deep pity entered Rustum’s soul

As he beheld him coming; and he stood,

And beckoned to him with his hand, and said:—

‘O thou young man, the air of heaven is soft,

And warm, and pleasant; but the grave is cold.

Heaven’s air is better than the dead cold grave.

Behold me: I am vast, and clad in iron,

And tried; and I have stood on many a field

Of blood, and I have fought with many a foe:

Never was that field lost, or that foe saved.

O Sohrab, wherefore wilt thou rush on death?

Be govern’d: quit the Tartar host, and come

To Irun; and be as my son to me,

And fight beneath my banner till I die.

There are no youths in Irun brave as thou.’

“So he spoke mildly: Sohrab heard his voice,

The mighty voice of Rustum; and he saw

His giant figure planted on the sand,

Sole, like some single tower, which a chief

Has builded on the waste in former years

Against the robbers; and he saw that head,

Streak’d with its first grey hairs: hope fill’d his soul;

And he ran forwards, and embrac’d his knees,

And clasp’d his hand within his own and said:—

‘Oh, by thy father’s head! by thine own soul!

Art thou not Rustum? speak! art thou not he?’

“But Rustum eyed askance the kneeling youth,

And turn’d away, and spoke to his own soul:—

‘Ah me! I muse what this young fox may mean.

False, wily, boastful are these Tartar boys.

For if I now confess this thing he asks,

And hide it not, but say—Rustum is here—

He will not yield indeed, nor quit our foes,

But he will find some pretext not to fight,

And praise my fame, and proffer courteous gifts—

A belt or sword perhaps—and go his way.

And on a feast-day in Afrasiab’s hall,

In Samarcand, he will arise and cry—

“I challenged once, when the two armies camp’d

Beside the Oxus, all the Persian lords

To cope with me in single fight: but they

Shrank; only Rustum dared: then he and I

Changed gifts, and went on equal terms away.”

So will he speak, perhaps, while men applaud.

Then were the chiefs of Irun shamed through me.’

“And then he turn’d, and sternly spake aloud:—

‘Rise! wherefore dost thou vainly question thus

Of Rustum? I am here, whom thou hast call’d

By challenge forth: make good thy vaunt, or yield.

Is it with Rustum only thou wouldst fight?

Rash boy, men look on Rustum’s face and flee.’”

Then follows the combat, Homerically intermingled with a great deal of talk between the champions, until Sohrab falls mortally wounded by his father’s spear. Then come the explanations, and Rustum knows that he has slain his son.

“And with a heavy groan, Rustum replied:—

‘Oh that its waves were flowing over me!

Oh that I saw its grains of yellow silt

Roll tumbling on the current o’er my head!’

“And with a grave mild voice, Sohrab replied:

‘Desire not that, my father; we must live.

For some are born to do great deeds, and live,

As some are born to be obscured, and die.

Do thou the deeds I die too young to do,

And reap a second glory in thine age.

Thou art my father, and thy gain is mine.

But come: thou seest this great host of men

Which follow me; I pray thee, slay not these:

Let me entreat for them: what have they done?

They followed me, my hope, my fame, my star.

Let them all cross the Oxus back in peace.

But me thou must bear hence, not send with them,

But carry me with thee to Seistan,

And place me on a bed, and mourn for me,

Thou, and the snow-hair’d Zal, and all thy friends.

And thou must lay me in that lovely earth,

And heap a stately mound above my bones,

And plant a far-seen pillar over all:

That so the passing horsemen on the waste

May see my tomb a great way off, and say—

Sohrab, the mighty Rustum’s son, lies there,

Whom his great father did in ignorance kill—

And I be not forgotten in my grave.’

And with a mournful voice Rustum replied:—

‘Fear not; as thou hast said, Sohrab, my son,

So shall it be: for I will burn my tents,

And quit the host, and bear thee hence with me,

And carry thee away to Seistan,

And place thee on a bed, and mourn for thee,

With the snow-headed Zal, and all my friends.

And I will lay thee in that lovely earth,

And heap a stately mound above thy bones,

And plant a far-seen pillar over all;

And men shall not forget thee in thy grave.

And I will spare thy host: yea, let them go:

Let them all cross the Oxus back in peace.

What should I do with slaying any more?’”

Real poetry, we are sorry to say, is now so scarce among us, that we cannot afford to dismiss any promising aspirant with a sneer. From the foregoing extracts it will be seen that Mr M. Arnold, in opposition to the tenets of that school of bardlings so copiously beslavered by Guffaw, has adopted, in this poem, a simple and even severe method of expression. He is now writing after Homer—not, indeed, slavishly, but on the Homeric principle; and the question now arises, whether or not he has succeeded. Our opinion is that this poem is highly creditable as an attempt in the right direction—that it is infinitely superior to the turgid trash with which we have been, of late years, inundated—but that it has not merit enough to confer lasting distinction on the author. Mr Arnold, we are aware, has been told the reverse; and as the sugared cup is always more palatable than that which contains an ingredient of bitter, he may possibly be inclined to prefer sweet panegyric to sincere though wholesome criticism. But we are not writing for him alone; we are attending to the poetical reputation of the age. In this composition, as it appears to us, Mr Arnold again suffers through imitation. He is writing, with deliberate intention, Homerically—that is, he has been keeping Homer in his eye, instead of rivetting it on his subject. Now this is a great mistake. The peculiar manner of a poet depends upon the age in which he lives. There is an enormous gap in world-history between “the blind old man of Scio’s rocky isle,” and Mr Matthew Arnold, who dates from “Fox How, Ambleside,” A.D. 1853; and it is a sheer impossibility that the two can naturally express themselves alike. What was nature in the one, is affectation in the other. Homer expressed himself simply, because he was addressing a simple audience; and also because his hearty, noble, and grand organisation made him superior to rhetorical conceits or affectation. Arnold also expresses himself simply; but he does so, not from native impulse or inspiration, but because he is aware of Homer’s charm. But he frustrates his own intention by deliberately copying Homer, and making his readers painfully aware of it. A true, or at all events a very accomplished poet, would not have committed this error. Let any man, of really cultivated taste in poetry, read the “Hyperion” of Keats, and the “Morte D’Arthur” of Tennyson—both of them splendid poems, and distinguished by severe simplicity of language—and then compare them with this effusion of Mr Arnold. We cannot for one moment doubt the verdict. Keats and Tennyson saw the principle, but they kept themselves away from imitation, gave their genius full play, and achieved magnificent results. Mr Arnold, recognising the principle, cannot divert his eye from the model, adopts the peculiarities of that, and fails. In fact, imitation is his curse. We said so more than four years ago, and we now repeat it. So strong is his tendency that way, that he cannot, within the limits of a composition of moderate length, confine himself to the imitation of a single renowned poet, but makes patchwork by copying the peculiarities, even though they are acknowledged blemishes, of another. Thus we find, nearly at the commencement of the poem which we are now discussing, the following passage:—

“The sun, by this, had risen, and clear’d the fog

From the broad Oxus and the glittering sands:

And from their tents the Tartar horsemen filed

Into the open plain; so Haman bade;

Haman, who next to Peran Wisa ruled

The host, and still was in his lusty prime.

From their black tents long files of horse they stream’d:

As when, some grey November morn, the files,

In marching order spread, of long-neck’d cranes,

Stream over Casbin, and the southern slopes

Of Elburz, from the Aralian estuaries,

Or some from Caspian reed-bed, southward bound

For the warm Persian sea-board: so they stream’d.

The Tartars of the Oxus, the king’s guard,

First, with black sheepskin caps, and with long spears;

Large men, large steeds; who from Bokhara come

And Khiva, and ferment the milk of mares.

Next the more temperate Toorkmans of the south,

The Tukas, and the lances of Salore,

And those from Attruck and the Caspian sands;

Light men, and on light steeds, who only drink

The acrid milk of camels and their wells.”

The description—or catalogue—is twice as long as the foregoing extract, but we cannot afford to multiply quotations. The student of Milton will readily recognise the source of this inspiration, and will regret that those very passages, which every sound judge (if he be not an arrant pedant or a schoolmaster) would wish to be excised from the pages of the “Paradise Lost,” should have been selected for imitation by a young modern poet.

Further, Mr Arnold errs in being unnecessarily minute. Here again he may plead the Homeric example; but we reply, as before, that Arnold is not Homer. That style of description, which Delille happily characterises as “peindre les ongles,” is not only tedious but puerile, and sometimes has a ludicrous effect. Take, for example, the following detailed account of the toilet of an old Tartar gentleman:—

“So said he, and dropp’d Sohrab’s hand, and left

His bed, and the warm rugs whereon he lay,

And o’er his chilly limbs his woollen coat

He pass’d, and tied his sandals on his feet,

And threw a white cloak round him, and he took

In his right hand a ruler’s staff, no sword;

And on his head he placed his sheepskin cap,

Black, glossy, curl’d, the fleece of Kara-Kul;

And raised the curtain of his tent, and call’d

His herald to his side, and went abroad.”

Now, supposing that Mr Arnold had to describe the uprising of a modern, would he consider it necessary to favour us with a description of the emergence from the blankets, the deposition of the nightcap, the wrestle into the nether integuments, the shaving-jug, the razor, and all the rest of it? We beg to assure him that this passage, so far from being vigorous, is pure slip-slop; and we are convinced that, on reflection, he will admit the justice of the stricture. For example; how infinitely more terse and satisfactory is the one line which Shakespeare puts into the mouth of poor Ophelia—

“Then up he rose, and donn’d his clothes!”

What the mischief do we care for the texture of the stockings, or the peculiar method of investiture? Is it necessary to enter into details regarding the boots, and to specify whether they were Wellingtons or Bluchers? That there are, in this episode, some fine, and one or two noble passages, we are very glad to acknowledge, but it is by no means perfect as a whole. Indeed, even if the bulk of it had been faultless, the termination would have spoiled it as a poem; for Mr Arnold has been induced, through some extraordinary hallucination, to destroy the effect of the catastrophe, by superadding a needless piece of description. We sincerely regret this; because the catastrophe, when it does come (and it ought to have arrived sooner) is very fine; and no artist could have desired a better termination than the picture of Rustum watching by his dead son—

“And night came down over the solemn waste,

And the two gazing hosts, and that sole pair,

And darken’d all; and a cold fog, with night,

Crept from the Oxus. Soon a hum arose,

As of a great assembly loosed, and fires

Began to twinkle through the fog: for now

Both armies moved to camp, and took their meal:

The Persians took it on the open sands

Southward; the Tartars by the river marge,

And Rustum and his son were left alone.”

Here the poem ought to have ended; but Mr Arnold wishes to try his hand at that very ancient and hackneyed subject, the description of the course of a river; and, the Oxus being conveniently near, he embarks on a voyage for the Arab Sea.

“But the majestic river floated on,

Out of the mist and hum of that low land,

Into the frosty starlight, and there moved,

Rejoicing, through the hush’d Chorasmian waste,

Under the solitary moon: he flow’d

Right for the Polar star, past Orgunjè,

Brimming, and bright, and huge: there sands begin

To hem his watery march, and dam his streams,

And split his currents; that for many a league

The shorn and parcell’d Oxus strains along

Through beds of sand and matted rushy isles—

Oxus, forgetting the bright speed he had

In his high mountain cradle in Pamere,

A foil’d circuitous wanderer:—till at last

The long’d-for dash of waves is heard, and wide

His luminous home of waters opens, bright

And tranquil, from whose floor the new-bath’d stars

Emerge, and shine upon the Arab Sea.”

Not at all bad as a piece of versification, but utterly to be condemned in the place where it is introduced.

In spite of one or two beautiful passages—the best being the description of the children at play in the third part—we cannot enthusiastically admire the poem of “Tristram and Iseult.” It is sickly, feverish, and withal terribly disjointed—affording no trace of that symmetry of design, the lack of which in modern poetry Mr Arnold has very justly deplored. Neither can we say much for the “Church of Brou,” in which, by the way, Mr Arnold has attempted an elaborate description of a painted window, very dull of tint, indeed, when we compare it with the gorgeous masterpiece in “The Eve of St Agnes.” On the whole, we are disappointed with this volume, because we really think that Mr M. Arnold might have done much better. That he has the power is quite evident; that many of the poetical views he enunciates are sound, we have already acknowledged; but, somehow or other, he neither exerts the power continuously, nor adheres in practice to his views. We have a strong impression that he composes too coldly and phlegmatically, and without allowing the proper scope to his imagination. That is always a bad method. The inspiration of the poet is not by any means a mere figure of speech; it must be realised, if great effects are to be produced. Verses—ay, and good verses too—may be written to almost any extent, without the composer experiencing anything like a thrill of emotion; but verses so produced are not of the nature of true poetry. Grand harmonies suggest and develop themselves only when the mind is in an exalted state; and at such times the poet cares nothing for the rules of art. If he stops to consider these, he instantaneously loses the inspiration.

We cannot, as yet, congratulate Mr M. Arnold on high success; but we augur well of him for the future, and shall be delighted to pay him a more decided and satisfactory tribute whenever he will allow us to do so. Come we now to the second Arnold—Edwin, of University College, Oxford.

Judging from external evidence, we should say that Edwin is some years younger than Matthew, and he is fortunately, as yet, altogether free from poetical theories. Song comes to him as naturally as it does to the bird on the bough. He cannot help expressing his thick-thronging and always graceful fancies in verse; and he frequently does so with the true minstrel spirit. That he should be occasionally a little extravagant is to be expected. All very young poets are so, and we like them the better for it; for why should they affect the solemn airs and sententious pomposity of their seniors? Edwin Arnold is just now in the very parterre of poesy—culling flowers with a liberal hand, and binding them into a nosegay fit for the acceptance of his lady-love. Our pen would prove faithless to our fingers should we attempt to disentangle that pretty posy, which early genius lays at the feet of beauty. Why should we review his poems, after the manner of the cold critics, carping at what is enthusiastic, and triumphing over errors, from which older brethren of the lyre are by no means exempt? If he chooses, in imitation of “Burleigh Hall,” to renew the story of the Falcon-Feast, long since told by Boccaccio, and from him dramatised by Barry Cornwall, why should we point to faults which, in a year or so, he will discover of his own accord? Never again, we are certain, will he, in a love story, libel his hero and his heroine as he has done in four lines of that ballad—

“So for one who loved him never

Slew he what had loved him well:

Giannetta, silent ever,

Feasted till the sunlight fell;”

—thereby implying that the owner of the falcon was a brute, and his mistress a deliberate gourmande, gloating over the trail! The story, even as told by the Florentine, has always seemed to us hideously unnatural. The man who could sacrifice, in cold blood, a dumb creature that loved him, would not hesitate, under temptation, to lay a sacrilegious hand on the weazand of his father; and we pray Mr Edwin Arnold to consider what kind of sympathy we should feel for Ulysses, if his first act, on his return to Ithaca, had been to drive his falchion into the heart of old Argus, who, for so many years, had been lying neglected at the gate, pining for his master’s return. Let us rather give a specimen or so of the better style of our youthful poet. We begin with the first poem.

“Oh! was there ever tale of human love

Which was not also tale of human tears?

Died not sweet Desdemona? Sorrowed not

Fair, patient Imogene? and she whose name

Lives among lovers, Sappho silver-voiced,

Was not the wailing of her passionate lyre

Ended for ever in the dull, deaf sea?

Must it be thus? Oh! must the cup that holds

The sweetest vintage of the vine of life

Taste bitter at the dregs? Is there no story,

No legend, no love-passage, which shall veil

Even as the bow which God hath bent in heaven

O’er the sad waste of mortal histories,

Promising respite to the rain of tears?”

A very pretty commencement to a pretty poem; the subject of which, however, must be considered as rather ticklish. It is curious that Edwin, as well as Matthew, has tried his hand at the painted window, which we wish he had not done, as the plagiary from Keats is evident:—

“They sleep: the spangled night is melting off,

And still they sleep: the holy moon looks in,

In at the painted window-panes, and flings

Ruby, blue, purple, emerald, amethyst,

Crystal and orange colours on their limbs;

And round her face a glory of white light,

As one that sins not; on the tapestries

Gold lights are flashing like the wings of angels,

Bringing these two hearts to be single-hearted.”

O Edwin! what could tempt you to charge your pallet with so many colours? Don’t you see how ill they assort together, giving the impression of a mashed rainbow?—and how dreadfully out of place are the flashing gold lights! They should be “lying,” Edwin, not “flashing;” for the holy moon is looking in, and all within the chamber should be repose. Pray you observe the exquisite toning of Keats in that passage with which you are already familiar, but the extreme beauty of which you do not yet thoroughly comprehend.

“Full on this casement shone the wintry moon,

And threw warm gules on Madeline’s fair breast,

As down she knelt for Heaven’s grace and boon;

Rose-bloom fell on her hands, together prest,

And on her silver cross soft amethyst,

And on her hair a glory, like a saint:

She seemed a splendid angel, newly drest,

Save wings, for heaven.—”

Keats gives the colours in which an angel should be painted—yours, Mr Edwin, are too tawdry even for the coat of Harlequin.

So many of these poems come under the general title of “Occasional,” that we have some difficulty in finding a proper one for extract. Our favourite, on the whole, is “Quentin Matsys,” and from it we select a specimen.

“She was a painter’s daughter,—bold for love

He told his earnest suit, and prayed her hand

In words that his full heart made eloquence.

Silent the father heard; there as he sate

In jewelled silks, and velvets furbelow’d,

With works of mighty masters on the wall,

And all his art’s appliances about him,

A stern smile curled his pale patrician lip,

And cold and slow the cruel sentence came:

‘A painter’s daughter may not wed a smith;

Paint me like this and these, and thou shalt have her.’

Died then his love? Listen! The maiden wept

Such pearly tears, that in his bursting heart

Grew up strange hopes. Alas! to few is given

The magic skill that burns in life-like hues,

A speaking lip, an eye that beams and loves,

A moving majesty like nature’s own,

Save that this may not die: it is a gift

Higher and holier than a common man

May dare to reach at; oh! by what right, then,

Dared he to dream of it? by what right! Love’s!—

The love that lifts a peasant to a king,

The love that knows no doubting! Well he knew—

Too well for his fond hopes—that brawny arms

Guide not the pencil, and that smithy strokes

Fix not the fancies of a painter’s mind;

But still for that. To gaze into the eyes

That sparkled all for him was inspiration

Better than painter’s best: long days and nights

He strove as only lovers strive; at last

The passport to the haven of his hopes

Came in a touch, as if some angel hand

Had dipt his brush in life; and as the form

His fancy pictured, slowly—slowly grew,

And woke into broad being, then at last

He knew that he had won his golden prize—

That she was his for ever.

Antwerp’s bells

Rung out right merrily one sunny day;

Blue kirtles, and bright hose, and brighter faces,

Rhenish and sack, dancing and songs were there,

Feasting and music, and mad revelry,

And all to keep the wedding:—cavaliers

And highborn ladies stood to see them pass,

He, Quentin Matsys, and his blooming bride!”

Well then, after having given these extracts, we may be asked whether we think that Mr Edwin Arnold is really and truly a poet? Look, our dear sir, we beseech you, at that splendid gamecock—how glossy in his plumage, how quick in his eye, how massive in his neck, and how powerful in his limbs! There he walks, proud as the sultan at the head of his seraglio, the pride of his master’s heart, the terror of every recreant dunghill within a circle of a couple of miles. Some few months ago he was a mere chicken, whom you might have devoured with parsley-sauce without experiencing a pang of remorse. Before that he lay in an egg-shell. Now, had you looked either on the egg or on the chicken, you could not have stated with propriety that either was a gamecock—and yet there undeniably goes the finest ginger-pile in the parish. So is it with Mr Edwin Arnold. He may not be entitled yet to the high and sacred name of a poet—for he is still exercising himself in verse, and has not attained the possession of a distinguishing style of his own; but he shows excellent symptoms of breeding, and we doubt not will, in due time, advance a valid claim to the laurels. This, moreover, is to be said in his favour, that he is not treading in the footsteps of the “intense” school, and that he always writes intelligibly—a virtue which we observe a good many modern poets hold utterly in derision. Let him go on in his vocation, cultivating his taste, improving his judgment, observing nature, and eschewing gaudy ornament—and he may hope to win a name which shall be reverenced, when those of the utterers of fustian and balderdash, dear to the heart of Guffaw, are either wholly forgotten, or remembered only with ridicule.