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    September 13 , 1856 . ] THE JLEADEB . 883

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    truth may not be spoken in coffee-houses , ox * published , except in . volumes ; but a book has an advantage over a newspaper , and is difficult to suppress . We cannot send MM . de Montalembert or De Tocqu « yille to Cayenne ; we must even allow M . Michelet to ^ vrite criticisms that blister the Church , and . to deny the-vandalism imputed to the Reformation . Chronology is one of the few things exempt from a government prosecution . The annalists of the Crozier have made large use of an argument very effective in our times . The Huguenot'sp irit , they say , was jealous of art , insensible to beauty ; it mutilated the cathedrals , defaced the cartoons , discouraged the sculptor . But it did 'not . One of its earliest institutes prohibited the breaking of idols and crosses ; for , its austere moralists added , "We have idols in our hearts ; let - us destroy them" Who was it that offered to be shot , provided he might first hammer to pieces an exquisite marble image ? One of Conde ' s own soldiers . Who were they that-smote into fragments every object of art that could be discovered in the Palatinate ? The troops of Louis the fourteenth . The Reformation , observes M . Despoix , may have been a war against art ; but the three artists qf the period , Jean Gouj on , Bernard de Palissy , and Goudimel , were Calvinists nevertheless !

    that fidelity upon which so many poets—the priests of divinity chancels—expatiated . A . little masquerade at St . Germain , a bevy of young girls , some of them princesses , dressed as sibyls and graces , and a Scottish beauty , named Fleming , -were instructed by the queen to perform a drama of fascination before him , and the trick succeeded so far , that Diana tad -the best proofs of a rival being in the field . " ISo time was to be lost in . distracting Henry II . by a war . " Such is M . Michelet ' s interpretation . We may take it as incautious , and as resting upon insufficient testimony , but there can be no doubt -as to the general reality and value of his historical researches . They draw to light much that-had been obscured and confused by partial or conflicting marratives . _ In several instances the most overpowering evidence is cited to establish the main argument—the justification of the book , —that the history of the -Religious Wars of France has been converted , in the hands of ecolesiastical writers 01 their apologists , into a libel and a caricature .

    Moreover , as M . Michelet characteristically suggests , men are worth more than statues . It would have been better to mutilate an Apollo than to murder" Coligny ; there are crimes against nature worse than crimes against art , worse than a Puritan blow at a Grotesque , or even a profanation of the " Venus of M 31 o . JBut when Rohrbachei ' j who writes in Pastorals—Catholic , not Arcadian—attributes all the crimes of the epoch to the Huguenots , whom he compares to " a sect of stranglers , " what is the use of quoting the infamous argument of Gabriel Kaude in favour of public massacres , the assassination of Coligny by a Guise , and of the Guise princes by Henry III ., or the names of Clement , Chittel , or Earvaillac , or the murder of Eseovedo , or the reward of Gerard—the stigma ofBhilip II ., or the fate of D'Ancre , Wallenstein , or Monaldeschi ? M . Michelet has a wiser method , lie paints the portraits of Coli and Brantome

    gny of Jlontmorency— ' s- —who never failed to say his prayers in the morning ; but , while he muttered paternosters , kept saying , "Go , seize such apnc ; hang this fellow on a tree ; run them through pikes ' , presently , or , stay , shoot them before zny face cut to pieces all those scoundrels who have been raising a cry against the king ; burn this village ; come , let me have a good fire for a mile or two . " " This most Christian nobleman , " according _ to Brantome ' s confession , -was a Jeffreys in the service of the Church . Wlien a male prison er was brought before him he was accustomed to say , " You are a Huguenot ; , my friend ; I recommend you to If . Babelot "—a shoemaker turned hangman . Any young and beautiful woman he handed over to his servants , from whom she suffered a punishment wliich the count found much amusement in describing at dinner to his familiars . When Brantome testifies to the acts of his " good friends , " and Montluc to his own , what has M . de Falloux to say ?

    The truth is , that the history of the French Religious Wars has been as much falsified as the history of the French Revolution , which is our reason for saying that a . new history is essential . Another class of error is associated with another class of apology . The Church , adopting the ideas of 17 S 9 and 1639 , has foundit convenient , at times , to flatter the Revolutionists , by finding them a Huguenot ancestry . What were the innovators reviled by Bossuet as demagogues but an order of incorrigible aristocrats ? What were the followers of Coligny but traitors—historical accomplices of . the Coburgs and the Pitts , inviting English armies into France , and only suppressed by a committee of public safety , composed of the Guises , the League , Richelieu , and Louis XIV . ?

    These frivolous suggestions have duped many a writer led away by the love o £ parallel and analogy . It is forgotten that Frencli Protestantism did not recruit itself from the ranks of the nobility . Its -first martyr was a shoemaker , the second a silk-winder . The heretics burnt in Paris were generally artizans . The list for 1534 begins and ends with a shoemaker ; it does not include the name of one ' gentleman ! ' The list for 15 G 2 is entirely made up of workmen and petty shopkeepers . As De Capefigue admits , Catherine de Medicis knew how , with her troops of beautiful girls , to conquer the religious zeal of her aristocracy : " she could soften a heart of bronze by the touch of a rose . "

    Pictures of this character abound , indeed , in ' the narrative recited by M . Michelet . There are infinite contrasts—the scenes of a gay decameron , and the scenes of the blackest tragedy , the exquisite levities of Diana of Poitiers , and the murders of" Tournai ; the blue and gold salons of Anct , and the cells of the Inquisition , Goujon ' s marble Grace , and the form of the burning martyr ; the marriage of Navarre , and the slaughter of Paris . Sometimes the light is that in which beautiful faces grow pale at Fontaineblenu , sometimes that which tints the corn in the field . Indeed , M . Michelet resumes his master-work—the History of France in the Sixteenth Century at the court of Diana , the wanton of the Rhone , whose beauty , attested by many a medallion and statue , he describes with diffuse elaboration . She had a delicate nose , a broad forehead , with the hair rolled away on both sides , large , wandering blue eyes , and she knew how to cherish her beauty . A sort of myth grew around her ; the false chivalry of the times was easily attracted to adore this goddess who possessed the art of blushin " like

    a girl , or of returning the gaze of an artist , like a model , as she pleased . Says M . Michelet , " when we look on her portrait at Cluny , its coldness startles us . " But at Anct she smiled as Armida . Her beauty , nevertheless , did not suffice for the personal government of Henry II . When she could not engage him in romance she engagod him in architecture ; -whem she could aiot interest him into architecture , she seduced him into war . According to M . Michelet , who is , however , an historian that needs to be followed by a critic , her influence decided the king in 1555 to make war . France , he « ays , was then the sport of caprice , ruled without policy or resolution . Two treaties , of the most contradictory nature , were made in direct succession—a treaty for a war against the emperor in 1355 , negotiated by the Guises , a treaty tor peace with the emperor in 155 G , negotiated by the Constable . What wore the influences working on "theso two occasions ? « That which , as I behove , determined the king , in the first instance , upon war , was a court intrigue that threatened the royalty of Diana , and tended to involve Henry U . in the anxieties of a new position . " In fact , Henry had grown tired of

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    THE JEWISH KATIOF . History of the Jeioish Nation , after the Destruction of Jerusalem wider Tittis . By £ ke Rev . Alfred Ederslieim , Ph . D . Old . Aberdeen . Edinburgh : Constable and Co . ; London : Hamilton , Adams , and Co . Dr . Edersheim has laboured amongst a host of modern writers to gather the stray noticesand information scattered through -their commentaries , and to weave them into a continuous and regular narrative . The voluminous work of Dr . Jost , of Frankfort , served for the foundation ; Dr . Gratz lent partial aid from his uncompleted work ,-whilst the short but comprehensive essay of Selig Cassel in Erscfts Encyclopaedia suggested hints , and gave an occasional colouring to the history . The researches of Prideaux , Selden , and especially Lightfoot , on the manners and customs of the Hebrews , besides those of numerous other writers , principally German , have been consulted .

    to nil up the general outline with vivid and pictorial illustrations . The work of Dr . Edersheim , however , is not a compilation . He avails liirpself of the services of others , but does not blindly adopt them . He challenges their statements when his superior information leads him to suspect their accuracy , nor does he allow his own style to be disfigured by the violent partizan feeling he sometimes meets with in the authors he consults . The spirit in which he criticizes the Jews nationally and individually is tempered with great liberality , and bears out his own admission , that u nothing is more repugnant to the spirit of the Gospel , or more certain to carry with it the most serious consequences ( as History-has clearly shown ) , than any systematic attempt tb _ legislate for other men ' s consciences on questions of practice . " -. The period over which the present volume extends is particularly fertile in historic matter . Commencing with a retrospective sketch of the Jewish people from the time of the Babylonian captivity , Dr . Edersheim follows

    his dispersed countrymen ( for we believe he is a Christianized Jew ) into every quarter of the globe whither persecution , drove them . He then returns with the returning tribes to Judsea , and traces out their history down to the grand final Avar of liberation under the impostor Bar Cochab , which was ruthlessly quelled by the generals of the unwarlike Hadrian . It is impossible not to be struck with the wonderful tenacity with which the Hebrews of every period clung to their customs and nationality . Tley were dispersed into Europe , Asia , arid Africa , from . Italy to Chinn , and from Ethiopia to Thrace ; yet we find the persecuted race still reading the law , and looking forward to the restoration of their liberties and their country . In some kingdoms their superior knowledge gave them great influence , and they rose to princely offices ; in others where they took refuge , kings became proselytes , whilst in China many of the children of Abraham , became mandarins . Yet tlieir hearts still yearned for the land of the nativity of their forefathers—for the land of the hilly and beautiful Palestine .

    History , it has been observed , consists of little more than a narration of injustice leading to invasion , and oppression leading to insurrection . It would be , therefore , superfluous to recount the bloody items that make up the grand sum of persecution so often threatening annihilation to the Hebrew race . The reader is familiar with the siege , the seizure , and the destruction of Jerusalem , the queen of cities , under Titus . There is something so horrible and so repulsive in the accessories of the picture , that humanity may well desire to draw a veil across the exhibition . With the destruction of Jerusalem , however , the spirit of the people , though broken , was not extinguished , and instances of revolt constantly recurred to prove the inextinguishable nature of that hope which had burned so brightly in the deepest darkness of persecution . This gives the historian the opportunity of ' portraying the heroism of individual Christian cities and personsa heroism that has never been surpassed in any cause . The martyrdom of the Rabbi Alciba is suggestively related , as well as that of the llabbi Chananja ben Teradion .

    These dark features of history axe relieved by the light thi'own upon the powers and zeal of the iSanhedrim and Synagogue , their coble stand for independence , their devotion to their creed and thfcir country , and the constant eiForts they made to collect together the wrecks of their nationality when it had at last been shattered to pieces against the mighty legions of Home . The most interesting portions of the work , however , are those which depict the social condition of the inhabitants and the progress of the arts and sciences in Palestine . These are very full and illustrative , and we learn from them much of the life and manners , agriculture and commerce , chiu-actor and views of the Hobrcws .

    The ancient Jews , it is well known , lived in constant fear of invasion from , their neighbours , either the Egyptians , the Arabians , or the Syrians . This necessitated them not only to multiply the number of their cities to protect theirilocks and herds , and the fruits of the ground , but also to fortify thorn woll , which was done by thick walls , gates covered with iron , and watch-towers . A town was not computed largo or small according to the census , but by the number of students of the law it contained . If there were less than ten , it was reckoned a small town . The sanitary regulations , in most cases , were excellent . Cemeteries , tan-pits , and similar places which might en-

• Citation
  • Leader (1850-1860), Sept. 13, 1856, page 883, in the Nineteenth-Century Serials Edition (2008; 2018) ncse-os.kdl.kcl.ac.uk/periodicals/l/issues/vm2-ncseproduct2158/page/19/