Chapter V (6)

The discussion at the divan of Hafiz Bey lasted all the morning. Rodoan Aga and the Moslems of Gaza retired to dine and take their mid-day nap, while Sidney retired to his room to meditate on his embarrassed position. Had he possessed a couple of horses, or money enough to purchase them, he would, without a moment's hesitation, have put his foot in the stirrup and left Gaza, its consuls, and its governor behind, and trusted to his good fortune for finding his way to Jerusalem. But his empty purse rendered every project of flight impossible. His wits being now sharpened by his misfortunes, he easily perceived that Rodoan Aga was in league with his host, Fat Abraham, and he had no doubt that the departure of the Persian was really connected with the political storm which threatened Syria. Even Hafiz Bey, he felt assured, possessed some knowledge of the intrigues of the Sublime Porte against Mohammed Ali's domination, and made use of this mercantile affair as a veil to other projects. The more Sidney reflected, the greater he saw his danger to be; and yet he was only the more convinced of his utter helplessness amidst the mesh of intrigues with which he was surrounded. He became seriously alarmed at his position, as soon as he saw that no exertions of his own could possibly improve it. He fell into a reverie on the doctrine of predestination in the East, which seemed to him, in his present situation, infinitely more rational than it had ever appeared before. The moral and religious disposition of the Arabs and Turks began to appear to him as much the result of the air and climate as the plague itself; and there seemed as much danger of their affecting the intellects of a traveller who delayed too long within the sphere of their operation, as of the plague affecting his body.

His escape was really hopeless. No more travellers were likely to pass through Gaza during the summer, and Hafiz Bey was not likely to allow him to communicate either with Jerusalem, Beyrout, or Damascus. He threw himself on his sofa in despair, and remained plunged in a series of conjectures, each one more disagreeable than its predecessor.

Achmet, after placing his master's breakfast before him, had sallied out to the bazaar to collect news. In about an hour he returned, and found Sidney still overpowered with melancholy thoughts. "Mr Sidney! Mr Sidney! the coffee cold," shouted Achmet.

"Curse the coffee!" replied Sidney, whose mind naturally enough reverted to the magazine filled with coffee in the room below him, of which he had suddenly become the commission merchant. But he rose up to see how Achmet bore their mutual misfortune. To his astonishment, Achmet's black face was radiant with joy. Amazed at the change, for when he had last looked at Achmet he was in a furious passion at their detention, Sidney said--"Achmet, you seem pleased to stay in this accursed spot, Gaza!"

Achmet rejoined--"Me no pleased--me no help."

"Well then, Achmet, bring me some warm coffee, and let me hear what consoles you?"

Achmet soon appeared with a fresh supply of Mocha; and while Sidney was proceeding with breakfast, he seated himself near the door on his heels, as was his habit whenever he proposed holding a long conversation with his master.

To Sidney's question, "Now, Achmet, tell me what I must do?" Achmet replied--"You must keep Ibrahim's shop, Mr Sidney, to be sure;--you merchant, me slave--plenty of tobacco--all go very good." He then placed all the facts he had collected in the bazaar before his master's mind, and unfolded his own thoughts in comments on them, concluding by declaring, that Sidney must act as the representative of Ibrahim Sishman in the shop in the bazaar, or submit to see some other person elected by the inhabitants of Gaza to act in his place, and perhaps starve in a strange land. As some consolation, Achmet assured his master that there could be no doubt that the affairs of Ibrahim were really in a prosperous way, and that in a very short time they would be able to collect money enough to pay the bill on Beyrout, and then they could turn over the administration of the trust committed to their charge to some other deputy. The picture Achmet drew of Sidney seated like a tailor in the den in the bazaar, doling out tobacco and coffee to the citizens of Gaza, was so comic, that, in spite of all his embarrassments, Sidney burst into a hearty laugh.

However Sidney might dislike being a tobacconist in Gaza, his good sense soon convinced him that Achmet had taken a very just view of his position. Willingly or unwillingly, fate had predestined him to keep Fat Abraham's shop. He felt, too, that if any thing must be done, the true mode is to do it as well as possible; and without any more hesitation he took up the bunch of keys and walked with Achmet to the shop, where he was soon seen seated, cross-legged, poring over the books and accounts of the Persian consul. In these researches Achmet afforded him valuable assistance; for without his aid even the simple mysteries of Arabic book-keeping might have remained an impenetrable labyrinth. Once engaged in mercantile business, Sidney paid the greatest attention to his charge, in the hope that he would thereby succeed in shortening the period of his compulsory residence at Gaza. Even Rodoan Aga was so delighted with his proceedings, that he advised him to settle down for life as a tobacconist.

Week after week now crept slowly away. No news arrived from Ringlady and Campbell. Ibrahim Sishman gave no signs of his existence; Hafiz Bey received no communications from Damascus; insurrections and disturbances were heard of in every direction, and the names of Sheikh Salem and his ally the Sheikh of Hebron were mingled with reports of a general rebellion in Palestine.

In the mean time Sidney found the gains of Oriental commerce in its regular channel through the bazaar of Gaza very small indeed; and though he emulated the frugality of an Arab, he was unable to save the little sum required to attempt to escape. He was by the flight of Ibrahim suddenly burdened with the maintenance of his host's harem, and had discovered, to his utter consternation, that he was bound to maintain two wives and four children he had never seen. Every evening his matrimonial duties were brought to his recollection before he closed his shop by the accursed slave who presented him with the letter and the keys which had robbed him of his liberty. That slave came and demanded five piastres, or one shilling, for the maintenance of the harem next day; a few extra demands were made at stated periods; and Sidney was himself astonished to perceive that a household, consisting of eight or nine individuals, could live with apparent satisfaction on the trifling sum of one shilling per diem. The sum, however, moderate as it was, absorbed all the profits of the retail trade, and the more extended commercial transactions of the Persian were now interrupted by the disturbed state of the country.

In vain Sidney toiled to accumulate a sum large enough to pay his expenses to Beyrout; his savings were always swept away by some unavoidable payment. He at last began to despair, and fancy himself spell-bound on the verge of the Desert; and the sad alternative of being compelled to pass twelve years of his life as a tobacconist at Gaza--one of his relatives having passed that period in the south of France a _detenu_ of Napoleon's tyranny--continually presented itself to his imagination, and ended by plunging him into a dangerous state of melancholy.

Determined at last to make a decisive effort to break his bonds, Sidney resolved to despatch Achmet to Damascus with a petition to Ibrahim Pasha; for he saw that without an order from that pasha there was very little chance of his getting away from Gaza. Accordingly he made an application to Hafiz Bey, at his public divan, to allow Achmet to accompany the first courier he might despatch to Damascus; and at the same time he endeavoured to send letters to inform the English consuls at Damascus, Beyrout, and Alexandria of his unfortunate situation. Hafiz Bey did not venture to refuse his request; but a new difficulty now occurred. Sheikh Salem had assembled a considerable force in the mountains which bound the plain extending from Gaza, to Jaffa, and kept the garrison of Gaza in such a state of alarm, that Hafiz Bey declined sending away any courier until he should hear that Ibrahim Pasha had reinforced the garrisons of Jerusalem and Jaffa.

It was now evident that Sidney's anxiety was injuring his health, and his condition excited the compassion of Rodoan Aga, who visited him every evening to console him. Finding his attempts to persuade Sidney to settle at Gaza vain, he one evening addressed him thus:--

"Thou art ill, and eager to quit us, Seid Aga?"

"If I fly to the desert, and take the lance of a Bedouwee, I will remain no longer at Gaza," was the reply.

"Thou desirest to return to England?

"It is the country of my fathers--if I can escape from this spot, I will hasten thither."

"Dost thou not see, O Seid Aga! that Hafiz Bey feareth to let thee depart? He feareth that dog of a usurer, the consul from Sham, who placeth the arms of England over his door, and lendeth money under their shadow at eighteen per cent, and acts as a spy for the great Pasha."

"Hafiz may lose his head, and the usurer his money-bags, in the storm that is now gathering," said Sidney in his wrath.

"Thou hast said it," quoth Rodoan Aga with much satisfaction. "NOW will I reveal to thee how thou canst escape in spite of the Bey and the usurer, and thou wilt aid us in England."

Sidney now listened eagerly to the plan of escape proposed by Rodoan. It was, to suggest that Sidney should send a letter to Sheikh Salem, conjuring him to assist in furthering his escape from Gaza, in order that he might repair to Latakich to embark in the fire-ship of the Nemtsch. "Doubt not," added the Aga, "that Salem will soon find means to accomplish thy wish. I will send one for thy letter in an hour." Saying this, Rodoan rose and shuffled out of the room.

It required no great stretch of sagacity for Sidney to perceive that the Turkish party at Gaza now expected to derive some advantage from his presence in England, and for that reason they favoured his escape. It was not his business to point out to them the errors of their intriguing policy, so he sat down to pen a letter to Sheikh Salem. Though short, it was not very easily written, and it was hardly terminated ere an old Arab entered his room, and said he was going to bring tobacco from Beit Mirsim for Rodoan Aga, and came to ask for a letter, or teskereh. Something in the sound of the voice was familiar to Sidney, and on scrutinising the person of his visitor, Sidney recollected that he was one of the guides who had attended them in crossing the desert. The letter was immediately consigned to his care, with an exhortation to deliver it as soon as possible into the hands of Sheikh Salem, and a good backshish as a weight to impress it on the memory.

In a few days the proceedings of Sheikh Salem threw all Gaza into a state of commotion. Rumours were spread that he had ventured to detain Osman Effendi, the brother-in-law of Hafiz Bey, and a large sum of money belonging to some of the principal inhabitants of the town. Early one morning, Sidney was summoned to the divan of the governor, by a Chiaous in full uniform. At this divan, all the civil and military authorities, and most of the principal inhabitants of Gaza were assembled, all looking particularly grave. After Sidney's entrance a long pause ensued, during which he had time to reconnoitre this provincial assembly of Arabs. Seated near Hafiz Bey, his eye fell on the figure of Hassan, the friend of Sheikh Salem, who had weighed the intellects of European ambassadors in the well-poised balance of his own common sense. The sight of the Arabic philosopher cheered Sidney, who felt a conviction that he was now destined to escape from the meshes in which he had been entangled by the mad diplomacy of the trading consul of Gaza.

Hassan at length broke silence, addressing his words to Hafiz Bey, but making their import interesting to all the assembled Sheikhs and Agas. He announced himself as the envoy of Sheikh Salem of Nablous, and Sheikh Abderrahman of Hebron, sent to make a long list of complaints against Hafiz Bey and Osman Effendi; but he concluded by suggesting that means of composing all disputes might be found, if Hafiz Bey would compel the merchants of Gaza to undertake the administration of the affairs of Ibrahim of Hamadan, called Sishman, and release Seid Aga the English Beyzade, who was violently detained at Gaza, under the pretext that he was a Frank bazerguian or usurer like the Christian consuls. The conclusion of Hassan's harangue was in the clear and precise style of common sense, and far removed from the misty sublime of Frank diplomacy. His words were, "If Seid Aga, the English Beyzade, has debts in Gaza, Sheikh Salem will pay them; if the English Beyzade wants money, or horses, or camels, Sheikh Salem will furnish them; whatever obstacles oppose the immediate departure of the Beyzade, Sheikh Salem will remove them; and whatever injury he may sustain, Sheikh Salem will most assuredly revenge it. On his head, and on mine, I avouch it."

In reply to this speech of Hassan, Hafiz Bey made one much longer and more formal. A long discussion ensued, which occupied the morning. In the evening it was resumed, and at last it was concluded by arrangement between Hassan and Hafiz Bey, in which these two worthy plenipotentiaries, like most European ambassadors, abandoned all consideration of the affairs of their allies, and settled that part of the matter in dispute, as much as possible to their mutual satisfaction. It was agreed that Sheikh Salem should release Osman Effendi, and the money belonging to him and Hafiz Bey, and that Sidney should accompany Hassan, and quit Gaza at daylight next morning.

That evening Sidney gave twenty piastres to the slave from the harem, in order that his two wives and four children, with their slaves, might feel as much joy in getting quit of their Frank lord, as he did in obtaining a divorce from them. The keys of the shop and house, and the books, the tobacco, and the coffee of Ibrahim Sishman, were consigned to the care of Rodoan Aga; and Sidney and Achmet moved off that very night to the lodging of Hassan and his Arab attendants, in order to make sure of their powerful protection.

Long before daylight they were on horseback, and the rising sun was just gilding the humble minarets and the fragile buildings of Gaza, as Sidney turned to take his last look of the spot where he had spent nearly three months, seated crosslegged like a tailor, in its bazaar, acting the tobacconist. It was already something like the idle vision of a morning dream, exquisitely real, but ridiculously improbable. It was impossible to take a last look of the place as the colouring of the scene changed rapidly under the rays of the rising sun, without a feeling of melancholy; so that it was not without an effort that Sidney turned his back for ever on Gaza. He recollected the deep depression of spirits that had affected him as he entered on a lovely evening; and he now quitted in a brilliant morning of a Syrian summer, with a feeling of softened melancholy, hoping that he left it a wiser man than he had entered its walls, and satisfied that he could never forget the experience he had acquired in the little den he had so long occupied in its bazaar.

Sidney's subsequent adventures in Syria were not very varied. He soon learned that he was extremely fortunate in not accompanying Ringlady and Campbell to Jerusalem. He now heard for the first time that they had been murdered in an excursion to the pools of Solomon, before it had been in their power to obtain a single dollar to transmit to Gaza. Sheikh Salem, too, was prevented from meeting him on the road by other cares; but he sent a messenger with a purse, and a handsome sabre, which now adorns Sidney's library in Hyde Park Place. The messenger recommended Hassan to turn back from Jamne to the desolate walls of Askalon, where a boat would be found to convey Sidney to Latakieh. At Latakieh accordingly he arrived, and immediately embarked on board the Austrian steamer.

As he was never one of the devoted admirers of the simplicity of the administrative forms in the Ottoman Empire, nor even very enthusiastic in praise of the simple virtues of the Arabic race, we presume that he does not consider either the social or political condition of a nation in any way dependent on its commercial policy; for surely, if he thought Free Trade was destined to produce in Britain the effects it has produced in Turkey, he would not have supported it. We have heard him observe of Turkey, that in order to derive all the advantages conferred on the Ottoman Empire by the freedom of commerce, it is necessary for a native to emigrate, and become a foreigner. It is to be hoped we are not to be compelled to pursue the same course, ere we can enjoy all the fruits of our own legislation.

BYWAYS OF HISTORY.[16]

We have sometimes been disposed to regard with extreme impatience the fragmentary manner in which history is now written amongst us. _Lives of the Queens_--_Lives of the Kings_--_Lives of our Statesmen_--_Lives of our Chancellors_--thus breaking up into detached and isolated figures the great and animated group which every age presents. If our writers cannot grapple--and it is indeed a herculean task--with the annals of a nation, why not give us at least some single period, a reign or epoch, in its unbroken entirety? If they cut up the old man of history into this multitude of pieces, into what kettle or cauldron will they throw him that will boil him into youth and unity again? The scattered members are all that will remain to us. But our impatience on this matter would be very fruitlessly expressed. Such is the mode, such the fashion in the gentle craft of authorship. It were better, perhaps, to submit at once with a good grace--take whatever is worth the having, come in what shape it will, and keep our own good-humour into the bargain.

Amongst these fragmentary sketches, few have pleased us more than the two small volumes that designate themselves as _Byways of History_. Indeed, without pretending to do so, and notwithstanding their desultory nature, they give a very fair picture of the great period of the middle ages of which they treat, in its darker as well as its brighter points of view. There is also more novelty in the anecdotes than could have been expected, considering how well gleaned a field the authoress has had to traverse; and there is a playfulness in the style which, to youthful readers especially, will be found very attractive, though it may not always be sufficiently pungent to stir the stiffer muscles that grow about the upper lip of a sexagenarian critic.

"Byways" in history there are, strictly speaking, none at all; least of all can the peasant war in Germany, the principal subject of these volumes, be thought to lie amongst the secondary and less important transactions of the past. Whatever facts throw light upon the temper and modes of thinking of a bygone age, are of the very essence of history, though they may not immediately relate to crowned heads or official dignitaries. Yet, adopting the latitude of common speech, the title is significant enough. It is not the actions of kings and emperors, or the fate of nations and dynasties, that the fair historian undertakes to record; and as such a narrative is generally looked upon as the highway of history, she who diverges from it may be said to be traversing its byways. Only the byways, be it understood, may be the very roads which a good traveller would first and most industriously explore.

Ladies are said to hold it as one of their prerogatives to be a little unreasonable in their exactions, and a little self-contradictory in their sentiments. Our authoress appears, in one point, disposed to assert this prerogative of her sex. In ordinary cases, we know of nothing more impertinent than to appeal to the common process of litigious argumentation against these fair despots of society; but we doubt whether we should be acting even in the true spirit of gallantry, if we recognised any such prerogative in the domain of literature. It is open to any writer who thinks fit so to do, to disparage the present age by comparing it with olden times. It is also open to him, if he should be so minded, to show that these olden times, so much vaunted, were in fact far more culpable than ourselves, even in those points where we are guilty. But to none is it open--in the same book--to do both the one and the other; to disparage the present by comparison with the past, and then prove the past to have been ten times worse than the present. This is more than can reasonably fall to the share of any one author, or authoress. He cannot have it both ways. He cannot have the pleasure of putting the present age to shame by a contrast with the past, and the pleasure, almost as great, of exposing in their true colours the vices of a past that has been too indulgently surveyed.

But something of this license Mrs Sinnett seems disposed to take. At p. 37 we have to submit, with the rest of our contemporaries, to the following rebuke:--"When we hear it publicly proclaimed that it is a great thing for a young nobleman to postpone '_his pleasures_' for a week or two for the sake of performing a service to his country, we cannot but begin to doubt whether, in the education of our privileged classes, we have really improved much on the system of the 'dark ages.' _Then, at least, it was not thought that any class had a right to make 'its pleasures' its chief consideration._"

Indeed! Yet we are told in other parts that the landlords of those times not only made their pleasures their chief consideration, but wrung by violence the last groschen from the peasant's hand in order to procure them. At p. 55, vol. ii., after an account of the pleasures of the kings and nobles, we have the following description of the peasant:--"And what, then, was the condition of the people all this while? 'Look here upon this picture and on this!' All taxes and imposts fell, as a matter of course, on the lower orders; the humble citizen, the laborious peasant, had to toil and earn by the sweat of his brow, not his own daily bread, but the means of luxurious indulgence to his insolent masters; yet if the wild boar came tearing up his fields and vineyards, and the knight and his followers dashed after him with a troop of horsemen dogs, he had no redress, and dared not even kill the beast, lest he should interfere with the pleasures of his lord.... New methods and pretences for extorting money from the people were devised every day."

It would be easy to multiply similar quotations. The landlords of ancient times, with whom it was plainly intimated we could bear no flattering comparison, are held up, we see, to complete reprobation.

The difference between the bad landlord of ancient and of modern times, (for we presume the good and the bad, the wheat and the tares, were sown together then as now,) we believe to be this. The modern bad landlord takes his rent--a rent obtained often by a ruinous competition for the soil--and thinks no more of the matter; thinks nothing of the tenant, whether he has offered a higher rent than he can well pay, or of the labourer, whether the wages he receives are sufficient to support him in health. The ancient bad landlord was a positive extortioner; he _did_ look after his tenants or his serfs--to see if there was any thing more he could take from them; he looked into the roost for the last hen, and behind the barn-door for the last egg. When we censure the modern landlord for being an absentee, reckless of his tenantry, we in fact tacitly demand from him a higher strain of virtue than we exact from other wealthy classes, who are allowed to receive without inquiry, and expend without control, the utmost income which fortune and the laws have given them. He is at worst the "sluggard king," indifferent to a world of which he knows nothing, and absorbed only in the pursuit of his own pleasures. But the bad landlord of feudal times had the active vices of the robber and the tyrant.

Let no one study the middle ages in the hope--which some seem to entertain--of extracting from _them_ the lesson peculiarly applicable to ourselves. The feudal times are utterly past. Some of their forms, or some shadow of their forms, may still linger amongst us; but their spirit is as utterly past as that which animated an Athenian democracy, or the court of the Great King. We must study our duty as citizens, as Christians, in the circumstances around us, in the eternal Writing before us: we shall gain nothing by the fantastic gloss, with its grotesque illuminations, which the middle ages supply. This turning and struggling towards the past is but the backward looking of those whom the current is still carrying down the stream: it were wiser to look before, and on either side of them; they will better see whither they are going.--

It will perhaps be thought that throughout these volumes the sympathies of the authoress are a little too chameleon-like,--somewhat too mobile, and take their changeful hue from the immediate subject, or the last light thrown upon it. Now the knight, with his faith in God and his own right arm, his self-reliance, his daring and devotion, claims from the lady, as is most just, his meed of applause. But by-and-by she catches him upon his marauding expedition, the ruthless spoliator of the burgher, the contemptuous oppressor of the artisan; and she does not spare her censure. One moment she appears to join in the regret that the age of chivalry is _gone_! The next moment the same phrase rings differently, and when contemplating the oppressed condition of the peasantry, she rejoices that the age of chivalry _is_ gone! In one part she makes honourable mention of the training the youthful nobleman received in the halls of the great, where he acted as page; but cannot, in another part, refrain from a little satire on this very system of training. "Noble young gentlemen," she says p. 32, "who would not to save their lives have employed themselves in any useful art or manufacture, had no objection to lay cloths, carry up dishes, wait at table, hold horses, and lead them to the stables; and noble young ladies did not disdain to perform many of the offices of a chambermaid at a hotel, for a knightly guest."

We note this versatility of feeling, but hardly for the purpose of blaming it; for indeed it is the peculiar characteristic of the middle ages thus to play with our sympathies. They present so many and such different phases, their institutions are capable of being viewed under such opposite lights, that it requires more care and watchfulness than is perhaps consistent with simple honesty of thought and feeling, to preserve one's self from these fluctuations of sentiment. One who yields unaffectedly to the genuine impressions which the history of this period produces, will find his _Ohs_ and his _Hahs_ breaking out in a very contradictory manner. That knight, with lance at rest which challenges the whole fighting world--whatever can be tilted at,--who would not be that knight? But the man cannot read; and thinks an old woman can bewitch him by her spells, and that his priest, by some spell also, can absolve him. That monk, with folded arms over a heart so well folded too--who would not be that monk? But the man has mingled asceticism with his piety till he knows not which is which; and let a woman in her youth and beauty traverse his path, he crosses himself, as if not the angel of this world, but the demon of another had appeared before him. In looking at these phantasmagoria of the past, we must be content to see and to feel for the moment; there is no stereotyped expression of face with which we can regard the whole.

We have soon exhausted our critical cavils, and shall look at leisure through these volumes for some of those points which interested us during their perusal. Amongst the first things we had noted for quotation is an account of our old friend Gotz von Berlichingen--him of the Iron Hand--which we somehow liked the better for there being no allusion to the drama of Goethe. Nobody whom the information could in the least interest, needed to be told that it was the hero of the drama whose real life and adventures he was getting acquainted with. We find, however, on re-perusal, that this account is too long to be extracted: we leave it untouched for those who peruse the work; and shall make our first quotation from the description of the Hanse Towns. Here is a curious passage, which shows that the mere collecting together in towns, and making some advance in the great art of money-getting, is no guarantee against superstitions as gross and ridiculous as any that haunt the boor in his cottage.

"With the horrors of superstition in the punishment of witches and
the like, most readers are familiar enough; and such as occur in the
registers of these cities, have little to distinguish them from
similar occurrences elsewhere. Sometimes, indeed, there is an entry
somewhat more noteworthy; as, for instance, of the arrival of 'The
Wandering Jew' at the Isar gate of the city of Munich. It appears,
that this rather remarkable visitor was not allowed to enter the
city, but he told those who went to see him that he had been seven
times round the world, and on being shown a picture of the Saviour,
readily vouched for the likeness.

"Another entry concerns a certain wolf, who had committed terrible
havoc, so that the country people, even at mid-day, were afraid to
cross the fields; but a still greater consternation was created when
the discovery was made that the wolf was no other than a certain
deceased burgomaster of unhappy memory, who as every body knew, had
stood looking out of an upper window of his house to watch his own
funeral. The night-watchman was ready to swear to his identity; and
as, putting all things together, no doubt existed any longer in the
mind of any reasonable person, the formidable wolf, when taken,
instead of being disposed of in the usual manner, was hung on a high
gallows, in a brown wig, and a long gray beard, by way of completing
his likeness to the burgomaster."--(P. 95.)

Those who indulge in, or applaud practical jests, should read on farther in the same chapter (p. 102.) We heartily wish that the professors of this species of wit were every one of them conducted in his turn into the "Paradise" here described; of which it may be sufficient to intimate that "it was provided with a bench and a good store of rods."

On monastic institutions, Mrs Sinnett has some very just and equitable remarks.

"Monasticism was a resolute attempt to subject the outward to the
inward life; and through whatever devious paths it may have wandered,
it set out from the true and high principle, that the spiritual and
immortal man should attain dominion over the mere animal nature; and
it grounded itself on the undeniable truth that the indulgence of the
senses 'wars against the soul.' The objects it has in view are to us
also true and holy, though we may differ as to the means of their
attainment; yet even in these, the monks were not perhaps wholly
wrong. Solitude and silence are unquestionably amongst the means of
spiritual elevation; poverty is, in most instances, healthful to the
soul, a means of obtaining a simplicity good for both body and mind;
obedience is, beyond doubt, the school of patience, in which we best
learn to combat our original sins of pride and self-will; but we have
learned, from the experience of the Ascetics, a juster measure for
these things, which, perhaps, _a priori_, we might not have been able
to discover. They have tried the experiment for us; and now that its
history is before us, it is easy to determine that the attempt to
rend asunder the two natures so wonderfully combined in us, to put
asunder what God has joined, is one that cannot come to good.
Solitude, though often beneficial to full minds and active
intellects, is more than the vacuity of ignorance can support.
Poverty, pushed as it was by the Ascetics to the excess of
destitution, tends, it is to be feared, to blight both body and soul.
Obedience, carried beyond reasonable limits, leads to abject meanness
and hypocrisy, as the history of convents in general will abundantly
show. Yet, after making whatever deductions we fairly can for their
mistakes, we still find, in the history of these singular
institutions, much that is worthy of our deepest study; and the more
so, the more firmly we are convinced of the utter impossibility of
their restoration."--(P. 114.)

Restoration! Restore the Heptarchy! as Canning on one occasion exclaimed. And yet we understand that of late there has been a gentle sigh, and some half-formed projects for the revival of monastic institutions. We hear from the preface to Maitland's "Essays on the Dark Ages," that a circular was issued by persons of no contemptible influence in the church, headed "Revival of Monastic and Conventual Institutions on a plan adapted to the exigencies of the reformed Catholic religion." As Mr Maitland says of the plan--it would be after all but "a playing at monkery." Where, we would ask, is the irrevocable vow? Where is the unchangeable fate, the civil death, that awaited the inmate of the monastic house? Where is the superstitious admiration of the crowd without? Where all those religious ideas that made renouncement of life so sacred and meritorious? And where, moreover, is that insecure and unprotected condition of a half-civilised age, which made the retreat of the monastery so precious to the wearied and wounded spirit? You are charmed with an oasis in the desert;--you must spread the desert first, if you would realise the charm. What are monastic walls, to you,--who can take a lodging in Cheapside, and be as solitary, as undisturbed, as utterly forgotten as if the grave had closed upon you?

Viewed strictly as a portion of the past, and in relation to all the circumstances that gave origin and value to them, we confess we have a partiality for the old monasteries. Some of the popular censures which are still dealt upon them are founded upon erroneous ideas of the nature and purposes of such institutions. They are blamed repeatedly for their ignorance and their neglect of learning. They were not instituted for the preservation or advancement of learning. Originally they were not even ecclesiastical, but consisted of pious laymen, who wished to devote their souls to God, by drawing them out of the mire of their daily lives. Profane learning was more frequently regarded as a thing forbidden, than numbered amongst the objects which might engage their attention. "Solitude, _labour_, silence, and prayer--these were the elements of monastic life; and the question was not, how the monk might most effectually gather and diffuse learning, but--when, indeed, any question came to be raised--whether he might lawfully cultivate learning at all?"--(Maitland, p. 160.)

The charge of indolence, also--(the two epithets of "lazy and ignorant," generally go together, in the popular phraseology, when monks are spoken of)--is made without any discrimination, and bestowed as well upon bodies of men remarkable for their industrious and persevering cultivation of the soil, as upon the pampered and corrupted monastery. Amongst the rules of the Benedictines, labour figures conspicuously. In many cases it was the hard work of emigrants who first subdue the soil, that was performed by these sacred and secluded men. But, when an admiring world thought fit, in its sagacity, to reward a voluntary poverty by endowing and enriching it,--when the monastery became a wealthy landlord, with treasures of gold and silver in its coffers--then, as might be expected, labour declined,--the monk grew lazy, and the description which Mrs Percy Sinnett quotes from an old author, was, no doubt, very generally applicable to him. "Every other minute he comes out of his cell--then goes in again--then comes out again to look if the sun is not near setting." The world behaved towards the monk as an old gentleman we remember to have read of in some play, who, charmed with the temperance which his young friend had exhibited, rewarded it by putting his cellar of choice wines at his disposal. He was afterwards indignant at finding that the virtue of his protege had not increased under his kind encouragement.

The remarks of Mrs P. Sinnett, which we have just quoted, on monastic life, usher in a very entertaining account of the origin and growth of the "Abbey of Altenberg." Here is a fragment of it:--

"The half-decayed mountain-castle, where the community was now
established, was found to be in some respects unsuitable to its new
destination; and the Abbot Berno, therefore, with the consent and
assistance of the Counts of Berg, proposed to build a new convent
down in the valley, where already, on a pleasant meadow-land, stood a
chapel dedicated to the Blessed Virgin.

"When the monks were called together to consider of the precise spot
where the edifice should stand, it was found that they could by no
means agree about it; some thought it should be built at the northern
entrance of the valley, others that it should be at the foot of the
castle-hill; others, again, that it should be immediately on the
banks of the Dhun. In this dilemma, Abbot Berno, according to the
narratives of the monks, proposed what seems a curious method of
coming to a decision.

"Modern frivolity feels tempted to giggle when it hears that the
animal always in especial favour with the monks was the ass. His
simplicity of manners, humility of carriage, and usually taciturn
habits,--the sign of the cross which he bears on his back--the manner
in which he hangs his head, as the rules of most orders command the
pious brethren themselves to do,--the patience with which he submits
to discipline,--all this naturally recommended him to these devout
recluses. They were even ready, it seems, to regard him as a kind of
oracle in difficult cases.

"It was, we may recollect, not merely the spirit of monasticism, but
the spirit of all those ages, to see in what we call trivial chances
the ordination of a higher power. Do we not find, in the history of
Nurnberg, that in the fourteenth century, two hundred years after the
building of Altenberg convent, a worthy and respected burgher of that
city, one Berthold Tucher, of the renowned family of that name,
wishing to know whether it was the will of God that he should remain
in the world and marry again, or take holy vows and devote himself
to the monastic life did, after praying devoutly in the little chapel
in his house, 'at the corner of the Milk Market, there where you turn
into Dog Alley,' resolve to ascertain the Divine pleasure by the
simple method of tossing up a halfpenny; three times did he toss it,
and three times did it come up heads, and thereupon he accepted the
oracle, and went directly and fetched himself a wife.

"Even so did the monks of Altenberg now resolve to devolve upon the
ass the business which had proved too weighty for themselves. The
highly-honoured Neddy was conducted accordingly to the gate of the
castle, laden with the money to be expended for the building, and
with the insignia of the convent, and then left to take whatever way
might in his wisdom seem good to him. "Slowly and deliberately did he
pace down towards the valley, the monks following at a reverential
distance. Now and then the sagacious animal stopped, and cropped a
thistle, doubtless to give himself time for reflection, and
occasionally he stood still and looked around, as if to consider the
capabilities of the place. He went on till he entered a shady grove,
that afforded a delicious refuge from the burning rays of the
afternoon sun, and stopped where a bright rivulet, trickling from the
Spechtshard, and marking its course by a strip of the liveliest
green, fell into the beautiful Dhun. The monks watched him with
breathless expectation, for here they thought would be a delightful
spot, and they dreaded lest he should go farther. The respectable
animal, after due consideration, slowly stooped and tasted the water;
and then, that he might omit no means of forming a correct judgment,
began to try a little of the fragrant grass that grew in rich
abundance on the bank. At length he lay down, and having apparently
quite made up his mind, rolled over "heels upwards," and gave vent to
his feelings in the trumpet tones of a loud and joyful bray. His
sonorous voice was drowned in the exulting psalms of the monks--and
on this, the loveliest spot of the whole valley, the sacred edifice
was erected."

If the ass was a great favourite with the monk, it was still more so with the populace. With no other animal was so much of the rough humour of the middle ages associated. It might be worth consideration how far the introduction of the ass in certain religious or semi-religious festivals--as in the feast of the ass--has aided in investing him with that peculiar grave humour which modern wits associate with him. _Apropos_ of this feast of the ass, we may as well correct a general error which Robertson has led his readers into, when he describes it as "a festival in commemoration of the Virgin Mary's flight into Egypt." The Virgin Mary appears to have had nothing to do with it, and the ass from which the festival took its name was not that on which she fled into Egypt, but the ass of Balaam. We rely on the authority of Maitland, whose "Essays on the Dark Ages" we have before alluded to--a not very amiable writer, by the way, and far more acrimonious than the importance of his contributions to our knowledge entitles him to be, but evidently a very formidable antagonist to those who deal in loose and careless statements. "The _dramatis personae_ of this celebrated interlude," he tells us, "were miscellaneous enough. There were Jews and Gentiles, as the representatives of their several bodies--Moses and Aaron and the prophets--Virgilius Maro--Nebuchadnezzar--The Sibyl, &. &c. Among them, however, was Balaam on his ass; and this (not, one would think, the most important or striking part of the show) seems to have suited the popular taste, and given the name to the whole performance and festival. I should have supposed, that Nebuchadnezzar's delivering over the three children to his armed men, and then burning them in a furnace made on purpose, in the middle of the church, would have been a more imposing part of the spectacle; but I pretend not to decide in matters of taste, and certainly Balaam's ass appears to have been the favourite. The plan of the piece seems to have been, that each of the persons was called out in his turn to sing or say something suitable to his character, and among others, 'Balaam ornatus, sedens super asinam,' having spurs on his heels, and holding the reins in his hands, struck and spurred his ass, and a youth holding a sword in his hand, barred his progress. Whereupon another youth, under the belly of the ass, and speaking for the abused animal, cries out, 'Why, &c., &c.'"--in the well-known terms of the colloquy.

"Indeed the ass," says the same writer in a note, "seems to be always a favourite with the public, and to give the tone and title wherever he appears. In the twelfth century, an order of monks was formed whose humility (or at least their rule) did not permit them to ride on horseback. The public (I hope to the satisfaction of these humble men) entirely overlooked _them_, eclipsed as they were by the animals on which they rode, and called it _ordo Asinorum_."

There is an account here of "Prussia in the Old Times," which will be read with interest; the more so as we suspect it is a portion of history not very familiar to English readers. We mean the period from the conquest of Prussia, and its conversion to Christianity by the knights of the Teutonic Order, to the year 1526, when Albert, Grand-master of that order, made a treaty with Sigismund, king of Poland, with whom he had been at war, by which it was stipulated that Albert should hold the duchy as lay prince, doing homage--how times have changed!--_to the king of Poland!_

We shall devote our remaining space, however, to some extracts from Mrs P. Sinnett's account of the peasant war, the subject which occupies the whole of the second volume.

In every historical or biographical work which treats of the Reformation in Germany, there will be found a short, and only a short, notice of the peasant war, which broke out on the preaching of Luther, and of the fury of the anabaptists and others; and in every such notice the reader will find it uniformly stated that these disturbances and insurrections, though assuming a religious character, were in their origin substantially of a political or social nature, springing, in short, from the misery and destitution of the lower orders. But we do not know where the English reader will find this general statement so well verified, or so fully developed, as in the little work before us. In every part of Germany we see partial insurrections repeatedly taking place, all having the same unhappy origin; and our wonder is, not that the preaching of the Reformation should have communicated a new vitality to these insurrectionary movements, but that, after being allied with religious feeling, and religious sanction and enthusiasm, they were not still more tremendous in their results.

Here is one of the earliest of these insurrections: it is a type of the class. The chapter is headed

"THE DRUMMER OF NIKLASHAUSEN.

"Franconia, (the greatest part of which is now included in the
kingdom of Bavaria) was the smallest of the circles of the empire,
though excelling them all in fertility, and most of them in beauty.
The valley of the Maine, which flows through it, is so rich in
vineyards, that it has been said, it alone might furnish wine to all
Germany; and the river also opens for it a communication with the
Rhine, Holland, and the ocean, by which it might receive the produce
of all other lands. Towards the north, where the hills of Thuringia,
and the Pine Mountains are less productive, its comparative
barrenness is compensated by its riches in minerals and wood. It is,
in short, as a German writer says, 'a beautiful and blessed
land,'--yet here it was that the peasantry were suffering the
greatest extremities of want and oppression, and here began the first
of the series of revolts that preceded the great outbreak of 1525. It
was in the year 1476 that a shepherd lad of Wurzburg, named Hans
Boheim, but commonly known as Hans the Drummer, or the piper--for he
was in the habit of playing on both instruments at weddings, church
festivals, and such occasions--began to meditate on all he saw and
heard,--'to see visions, and to dream dreams;' and one day--it was
about the time of mid-Lent--there appeared to him no less a person
than the 'Glorious Queen of Heaven' herself. The life he had hitherto
led now appeared profane and sinful; he burned his drum in the
presence of the people, and began to preach to them to repent of
their sins, 'for the kingdom of heaven was at hand;' and he commanded
them at the same time to lay aside all costly attire, cords of silk
and silver, pointed-toed shoes and all manner of vanity. The people
hearkened to the new prophet, and great numbers came every holiday
flocking to Niklashausen to hear him. Soon he enlarged his theme.
'The Blessed Virgin,' he said, 'had not only commanded him to preach
the renunciation of all the pomps and vanities of the world, but
likewise to announce the speedy abolition of all existing
authorities; there should be no lords spiritual or temporal, neither
prince nor pope, neither king nor kaiser; but all should be as
brothers; that all taxes and tributes, tithes and dues, should be
done away with; and wood and water, spring and meadow, be free to all
men.'"

In reading this paragraph, one is at first struck with the superfluous incongruity of preaching against "costly attire and silk and silver cords" to the ragged and shoeless populace that formed the chief part of the drummer's audience. But a little reflection suggests that, in the first place, it gives a preacher a great hold over a mob, to inveigh against the sins of their superiors, and that, in the next place, there is a very easy transition from inveighing against the sins of the rich, to disputing their privileges, and comtemning their power and authority.

"For months together, on all Sundays and holidays, was heard the
voice of the holy youth, the 'messenger of our Lady,' as he was
called, sounding from his pulpit--a tub turned upside down--and as
yet, notwithstanding all that he had said and done, in perfect
harmony with the parish priest. Two nobles even are named as having
been amongst his hearers, the knight Sir Kunz of Thunfeld and his
son. Gifts began to pour in--rich gifts in money, and jewels, and
clothes; and peasant women who had nothing else to give, made
offerings of their long hair. Forty thousand worshippers of the
Virgin were collected around Niklashausen; booths and tents were
erected to supply them with necessaries, though at night they had to
lie in the gardens or in the open fields. The enthusiasm rose even
higher; but the priests now began to discover that they were playing
with edged tools, and to hint that Hans Boheim dealt in the black
art; that his inspiration was of the devil; and that the said devil
it was, and no other, who had appeared to him in the white robes of
the Blessed Virgin, and had prompted this ungodly rebellion against
temporal and ecclesiastical authority. But the hearts of men were on
fire, and the feeble sprinkling only made them burn the fiercer. They
flung themselves on their knees before the holy drummer, saying, 'O
man of God! messenger of heaven! be gracious to us, and have pity on
us!' and they tore and parted among them fragments of his garments,
and he esteemed himself happy who could obtain but a thread of so
precious a relic.'"--(P. 19.)

Yes, the drummer of Niklashausen was their god for the moment. Yearning for help, and unable to help themselves, such simple crowds are ready to believe in any voice that promises a coming salvation. But now the Bishops of Mainz and Wurzburg, and the Senate of Nuremberg, began to bestir themselves. Hans Boheim, after concluding one of his exhortations, had invited his followers on the next holiday to come without their wives and children, and "to come armed." What would have ensued at the next assembly we are left only to guess, for the prophet, while sleeping quietly in his house, was, in the middle of the night, fairly kidnapped by the Bishop of Wurzburg, and thrown into prison.