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Leader (1850-1860), 21st August 1858, Edition 2 of 2, Page 18, THE PEOPLE IN CHURCH. The People in Chur...

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      gwrtes , for there was the famous genealogy made out by the- Emperor EVanz before the marriage of ids daughter , besides which are the Famujlia JBoitaparta € faJ 1183 al 1834 , published anonymously in . Naples , 1840 ; and the Storia Genealoyica dtlla Famiglia Bonaparte , also anonymous , -which apipeared in Florence , 1847 ) . John I . de Bonaparte « nd his sons were among the noblemen who led the Xombard citizens to battle against the armies of 3 ? ederich Barbarossa , teaching the former Low to light . The same John signed the Treaty of Constance , 1183 , as "Joannes de Bonaparte , de Tar-__ A _ _ - & . J 1 _ ^_* . ^ ^ ^ l ^ . " rfh ^^^ nn ^^«* M j ^^ % 4 ^ vf % I ^ Abtv % *** A ^ m ^ %

      visio , Consul et Rector , ' * and his grandson conaraanded a band of Gaelphs against the Ghibellixes , JPrederi © II . at CasteLfranco , in 1239 . But in 1357 , the Venetian Republic decreed the banishment of the family from Trevisa , and broke down tleir * cu . tch « on from the part of their palace in the place off St . Andrew , at Trevisa . Daring the civil wars 4 be Bonapartes retired to Florence , Saa-Miniato , & dA Bologna , where they became magistrates , ' * ne-^ ptiators ?* ( which may be another term for merchants ) , and writers . One of them—Nicolo—was ihe author of a comedy , La Fedovct , printed at Florence , 1592 ; another , nephew and namesake of

      ifaelast , was professor of law at Pisa ; and a thud , JfKSopo , was the author of the Siege of Rome , in 1627 , which was formerly imputed to the brother of Guichardin , until the brother of the present emperor published a translation , in French at JSkwence , 1830 . Not content with making the Bonapartes noble , the Siguori Stefani and Beretta , ^ nd after them the Moaiteur , have introduced into tie family two monks who possessed the gift of -Meriting ; miracles , and one of whom , it is grarely jfcold , was the superhuman influence that placed the Emperor at the head of the French aiation , and went before- Mm to prepare the way for victory . TChat the men . arid their descendants wlio bore the lacicolor from Lisbon to Moscow should be informed nowvtltat it was not to the genius of their generals

      their own patnotisnv and brilliant courage , their successes were due , but to the ghostly interference of Fra Bonaventura , otherwise Giovanni Geiiesio Bonaparte , Vho died in the odour of sanctity , 1 & 93 , is * 'to-. say . the least of it , calculated to produce surprise , and feelings not very flattering to Uational vanity . It may be worth while to mention another discovery of these Italian historians , if only to show how differently a legend may be related . It is stated that the original ! name of the family vaaMalapart ^ , bufc the people having always seen them is . their ranks and at the heaa of the aood cause , would not allow them ( the members of the family ) to keep a name so little in accordance with the consistency of their affections . By their own authority the people changed Malaparte into Bonajparte . ' *

      Having made the Emperor a member of the lated -noblesse , and deprived him of the original merit of his srictories , the imperial historiographers next proceed < to place him before the public mthe most ridiculous light in which it is possible for a m an to appear . In the Histoire de rinipSratrice Josephine , M . Joseph Aubenas has published a collection of imperial loveletters , which are entirely devoid of literary merit ,

      of not the slightest historical importance , and in England woula probably come under Lord' Campbell's act . The editor of these epistles writes , " The conqueror of Italy realises , in fact , in the highest degree , the type of the amorous husband "—a type which has for ages past in France been treated with ihe greatest ncficule and contempt . "With what feelings , thuen , can it be supposed the French public will peruse a correspondence in which passages like the following occur P—

      My ooljr Josephine—Far from th « e there is no happinms ; * way from thee the -world is a desert , where X re-« aftt »; a | oae . « nd without feeling the « oft pleasure of © penintf my heurfc Thoa hast taken from ma more than my ¦ aonl ; thou , art the ; sole thought of my life . If 1 am wearied wltb . the annoyances of business , if I fear the Issue , If war dtagmt me , If I am Teady to curse life , I place my hand upon my heart where thy image beats ; I look upon it , and love is for me absolute , happiness , and n is riant , save the time I am absent from my love ! Bv rht art baat thou been able to take

      ^» captive aJl my Jaculties , and concentrate in thyself my moral faculties ? It is magic , my sweetheart , -which will only end mtth me . Live for Josephine is the history-of my life . 1 work , to draw nigh unto thee , I die to be near thee , O my adorable wife ! I know not what fate awaits me , 1 > ut if it keeps me from thee longer it will become insupportable to me ; my courage -will not go ao far . There was a time / when I prided myself on my courage , and sometimes when I cast my ej'es upon the ovil mon may o «« , apou the fate which may be in store for me . I

      looked upon the most unheard-of misfortunes without a frown , without fieeling astonished ; but to-day that rny Josephine may be ill , the idea that she may be unwell , and , above all , the cruel and dismal thought that she may love me less , - withers my soul , stops my blood , renders me sad and broken , down , and does not leave me even the courage of furoT and of despair . All the letters are in . the same strain . In one of them , the conqueror of Italy pretends to be jealous , and accuses his wife of indulgence in an Italian fashion : — "In the spring , the country is beautiful , and then the lover ot nineteen years is there without doubt 1 ^ v ^^ I ^^^^ l * v w ^ a « v ^ 1 ^«« ¦¦!¦ ¦ A ^ MA - ^ ^ __^ J _^ »^ j «_

      . ' * In another , lie writes of his envy of Junot seeing Josephine : — " He will see thee , he wUl breathe iu thy temple , and , perhaps , even thou wilt accord him the unique and inestimable favour to kiss thy cheek while I shall be alone , far , far away . " In the last of these love-letters , from which quotations maj be permitted , and which are as licentious as Ovid ' s epistles , without the literary merit and poetical imagination to excuse their publication , Napoleon lays claim to conjugal fidelity , with howr little J ustice the world is fully informed . He begs his wile to persuade herself " that never it ha 3 entered into my mind to think of another

      woman , that in my eyes they are all without grace , without ^ beauty , and without wit ; that thou ( Josephine ) alL alone , such as I see thee , such as tlouarfc , art enabled to please me and absorb all the faculties of my soul , that thou hast touched the entire extent , that my heart has no corners into which thou dost not see , ho thoughts that are not subordinate to thee ; that my strength , my arms , nay wit , are all thine ; that my soul is in thy body , and the day that thou slialt change or shalt cease to live will be that of my death ; that nature , the earth ,, is beautiful in my eyes only because thou

      dost inhabit it . " And he concludes by sending . " a thousand kisses on thy eyes and on thy lips , " when it is notorious that poor Josephine suffered from a physical infirmity which rendered it necessary for her to receive company with a handkerchief to Ler lips . ; •;;¦ ... ¦ ¦ ,. - ¦' . ; ¦ . " . . - ' ¦ ; "¦ ¦ ¦ ¦ } . ¦ ¦ ' , ¦ / . - . - / In reading these extraordinary productions of one whom M . Joseph Aubenas calls a . " poorlovesick hero , ^ the public bears in mind the numerous intrigues of their author , and his subsequent repudiation of her to whom , he wrote in this outrageous strain . The conclusion arrived at in the popular mind is most fatal to the influence and prestige of

      , the Emperor . His historical figure has no longer the moral grandeur and superiority to human passions and failings which it hitherto possessed among Frenchmen , for they have now had unveiled to them his frivolity and hypocrisy , his absurdly exaggerated pretension of affection for Josephine so long as her intimacy with B & rras and Tallien could serve his interests and promote the advancement of his family , obtain for modest Joseph the place of " consul in some Italian port where he desires to live with his little wife , far removed from the great whirlwind , and grandes affaires . "

      For There The Famous Genealogy Madelooke...

      3 * THE IBAPEE . I ^ Q-439 , Artist 21 i 858 ^ ^^^^^^^^^^^* * " ^' M ^^** iM ^^! ^ M" ¦ ¦ ¦ ¦ ¦ ¦ ¦

      The People In Church. The People In Chur...

      THE PEOPLE IN CHURCH . The People in Church . Their Rights and Duties in connexion with the Music of the Book of Common IWer . Bell and Daldy . This nervously and elegantly written plea for the more general adoption of music in church evinces the zeal and erudition , if not the soundness of the author . The subject is worth revival , for while a large proportion of English Christians have drifted into indifference and ignorance about the proper celebration of publi « worship , there are many who ( as we believe ) , for want of consideration , continue to abominate the faintest approximation to the musical Church Services of old and of late days . A powerful party has arisen who , erring on the other side , liave bedizened out our ritual with musical coxcombries in the disguise of elaborate simplicity , which not only scandalise the outer public , but also render participation in Divine Worship a grave difficulty to all but an iaitiated few . Mr . Pittnian traces very briefly from the earliest times the mixed presence in all ' worship of poetry and song . The celebrant , he urges , has always been no proxy for the people , but their leuder ; the choir or chorus is to govern the responses , and the preoeutor , or clerk , is no more than a substitute for the latter . Ho argues tliat the Office-book , or Prayer-book of our Church , is a collection of mainly poetical Beroces , and that as song and verse have been married together from time immemorial , it would be strange to find them divorced in the temple of their Creator .

      The words " say , " " sins " " mH » s , = " ^ by the compilers of our rubrics , were i & ft ** cording to Sir . Httman , to impljT 4 S i ^ musical intonation as had been in use w l , Reformation , and were simply t-auScd 1 ^ the variation from the ancient rubS TlLV ° Ut siders equivalent to a direction for their 5 . W ' nance , and argues that the " say" of X oT t service was no recitation in the tones of ordiSS intercourse , but was a certain lover degree b & smstical intonation , afterwards termed * , /„;„ , or ' song , or , in other words , the " modes ? £ Jt » which Queen Elizabeth enjoined to be uscrl ? parts of the Common Prayer . SCd m ^

      With the youth of this country ( says Mr Pittnn . »«> the omission of the music ia the greit » n » aic bSrfS Church produces a sad result . A metrical psalm i S ! a psara at all ; and the great hymns of the Smrc " t fact , the only Christian hymns of ancieut orMr « 5 tE Deum , theCreeds , the Glorias , ought not to bt pres ent ^ to the youthful mind in a naked , drv , barren Si ? defiance of their poetical frame , their ' hisS Sso ciations , aud the injunctions surrounding them T « I SSi !^ . ?^^ " ^ ? T * h ?!* ^ music ^

      . . e causes an apparent coldness and tediousness , a sense of weariness from accumulation and repetition . A frigid mechanical , confused outline of worship i 8 a sad Want to the mini and imagination of the child , and is the man so far removed from the child that to him none of these observations are applicable ? Song is the ancient medium for conveying the noblest sentiments into the human mind : and here are the most glorious tidings that human nature can be possibly concerned with and is music to be forbidden ? '

      It cannot be too often repeated that poetry is an . expression of higher emotion than that appertaining to ordinary prose , and that song is a portraiture of this eniotion in a still stronger and more vivid character . If there be found no more of meaning , no increase of emotion , in the use of poetry and song , this result must not be attributed to . any failure in this principle , but from some gross error that has been committed in the union of the symmetries of language and of song . In proof that the prose Psalms of David at least should be invariably sung by the people iii church , the author adduces the frequent direction of his hymns hy David to the chief musician . Reciting the 40 th and 51 st Psalms . :

      It is impossible ( lie says ) to suppose that he who created these wondrous specimens of poetry couW have resigned them into the hands of a musician , " unless there was in existence some marvellous agreement of the harmony of sounds -with tlie beauty of the words ; some melody , heart-appealing in its entreaty , which would mark with still higher feeling these expressions depictive of the utmost depths of misery aud woe . With regard to the more proper and reverential incorporation of music with all forms of religious worship , we are , of course , of one mind with Mr . Pittman that , generally speaking , it is

      desirable ; with the propriety of chanting David ' s Psalms we also agree : but we cannot endorse his implied opinion iu favour of services musical throughout . In our opinion it would be as great an impossibility for an heterogeneous congregation to follow" an English Protestant priest intoning hi English—in fact to pray with him musically—as if lie spoke Italian or Latin . The uneducated , who can hardly follow the most distinct of readers , can surely never be expected to do so at all devotionally when monotonous simplicity of ordinary reading is replaced by musical intonation . Tlic difficulties of chanting , slight as they may appear to

      experts , are inconsonant with devout abstraction ot those who have no knowledge of music , and they arc distracting to the unpoetically poor and ignorant . We arc no admirers of the parodies of Brady and Sate ; but in our idea it were better to maintain them , and the common tunes in which all congregations cau naturally take part , than to cut off 30 important a part of all congregations as must ever be represented by the ignoi'ant and the untuneful . Such a change from our present custom as the general adoption of plain song creeds , Gregorian psahn tunes , and florid anthems , could tend but to the

      appropriation of distinct churches to the musical and the unmusical worshippers ; or . would bo apt to isolate the priest and choir , and to shut out altogether from participation in tho Church Offices such as have no musical voice or car . It 1 ms occurred to us more than once to bo present at a church where the miisical arrangements were the object of unceasing care to both tho clergy und the principal laymen of tho district . We have heard employed , in the coiarac of a oouplo of hours , every degree of intonation and vocalisation , from tUo " modeat song" to the complicated fugue anthcin .

  • Citation
    • Leader (1850-1860), Aug. 21, 1858, page 18, in the Nineteenth-Century Serials Edition (2008; 2018) ncse-os.kdl.kcl.ac.uk/periodicals/l/issues/cld_21081858/page/18/