Instead of numerous unconnected petty resistance to oppression. Unity, the prinpotentates, one of whom was called the ciple of all government-association of King, there are two great figures in Eng- equals, the principle of all checks-were lish history-a powerful King, and a pow- only found in the narrow sphere of each erful body of Nobles. To give the needful seigneurie, or each city. Royalty was authority to any act of general government, nominal; the aristocracy did not form a the concurrence of both was essential body; there were burgesses in the towns, and hence Parliaments, elsewhere only but no commons in the state. In England, occasional, were in England habitual.- on the contrary, from the Norman conquest But the natural state of these rival powers downwards, every thing was collective; was one of conflict; and the weaker side, similar powers, analogous situations, were which was usually that of the barons, soon compelled to approach one another, to cofound that it stood in need of assistance. alesce, to associate. From its origin royAlthough the feudatory class, to use M. alty was real, while feudality ultimately Guizot's expression, had converted itself grouped itself into two masses, one of into a real aristocratic corporation, the which became the high aristocracy, the barons were not strong enough to impose other the body of the commons. Who can at the same time on the king their liberty, and on the people their tyranny. As they had been obliged to combine for the sake of their own defence, so they found themselves under the necessity of calling in the people in aid of their coalition.' †

mistake, in this first travail of the formation of the two societies, in these so different characteristics of their early age, the true origin of the prolonged difference in their institutions and in their destinies?'

M. Guizot returns to this subject in a reThe people, in England, were the Saxons markable passage in the first volume of his -a vanquished race, but whose spirit had Lectures, which presents the different never, like that of the other conquered character of the progress of civilization in populations, been completely broken. Be- England and in Continental Europe, in so ing a German, not a Latin people, they new and peculiar a light, that we cannot retained the traditions, and some portion better conclude this article than by quoting of the habits, of popular institutions and it :personal liberty. When called, therefore, to aid the barons in moderating the power character of European civilization, compared 'When I endeavored to define the peculiar of the Crown, they claimed those ancient with those of Asia and of antiquity, I showed liberties as their part of the compact. that it was superior in variety, richness, and French history abounds with charters of complication; that it never fell under the doincorporation, which the kings granted, minion of any exclusive principle; that the generally for a pecuniary consideration, to different elements of society coexisted and town communities which had cast off their modified one another, and were always comseigneurs. The charters which English pelled to compromises and mutual toleration. history is full of, are concessions of general an, has been above all that of English civilizaThis, which is the general character of Europeliberties to the whole body of the nation- tion. In England, civil and spiritual powers, arliberties which the nobility and the com- istocracy, democracy, and royalty, local and mons either wrung from the king by their united strength, or obtained from his voluntary policy as the purchase-money of their obedience. The series of these treaties, for such they in reality were, between the Crown and the Nation, beginning with the first Henry, and ending with the last renewal by Edward I. of the Great Charter of King John, are the principal incidents of English history during the feudal period. And thus, as M. Guizot observes in his concluding summary-In France, from the foundation of the monarchy to the fourteenth century, every thing was individual-powers, liberties, oppression, and the

central institutions, moral and political development, have advanced together, if not always with equal rapidity, yet at no great distance after one another. Under the Tudors, for example, at the time of the most conspicuous adciple, the power of the people, was also rising vances of pure monarchy, the democratic prinand gaining strength. The revolution of the seventeenth century breaks out; it is, at once a religious and a political one. The feudal aristocracy appears in it much weakened indeed, and with the signs of décadence, but still in a condition to take a part, to occupy a position, and have its share in the results. It is thus

with English history throughout-no old element ever perishes entirely, nor is any new one wholly triumphant-no partial principle

* Vol, i. Art 14.

ever obtains exclusive ascendency. There is But to a nation, as to an individual, the always simultaneous development of the differ- consequences of doing every thing by halves, ent social powers, and a compromise among of adopting compromise as the universal their pretensions and interests.

rule, of never following out a general idea
or principle to its utmost results, are by no
means exclusively favorable. Hear, again,
M. Guizot :-
:-

The march of Continental civilization has been less complex and less complete. The several elements of society, religious and civi', monarchical, aristocratic, and democratic, grew up and came to maturity not simultaneously, 'In the continental states, each system or but successively. Each system, each principle has in some degree had its turn. One age be- Principle having had its turn of a more comlongs, it would be too much to say exclusively, folded themselves on a larger scale, with more plete and exclusive predominance, they unbut with a very marked predominance to feudal aristocracy, for example: another to the grandeur and éclat. Royalty and feudal arismonarchical principle; another to the demo-tocracy, for example, made their appearance cratic. Compare the middle age in France on the continental scene of action with more and in England, the eleventh, twelfth, and boldness, more expansion, more freedom. All thirteenth centuries of our history with the political experiments, so to speak, have been corresponding centuries north of the Chanfuller and more complete.' (This is still more nel. In France, you find at that epoch, feudal- strikingly true of the present age, and its great ity nearly absolute-the Crown and the dem popular revolutions.) And hence it has hapocratic principle almost null. In England, the pened that political ideas and doctrines, (I feudal aristocracy no doubt predominates, but mean those of an extended character, and not the Crown and the democracy are not without simple good sense applied to the conduct of afstrength and importance. Royalty triumphs unfoided themselves with greater intellectual fairs,) have assumed a loftier character, and in England under Elizabeth, as in France under Louis XIV., but how many ménagements observation in some sort alone, and having revigor. Each system having presented itself to it is compelled to observe! How many remained long on the scene, it has been possible strictions, aristocratic and democratic, it has to submit to! In England also, each system, each to survey it as a whole; to ascend to its first prinprinciple, has had its turn of predominance, but ciples, descend to its remotest consequences: never so completely, never so exclusively, as on in short, fully to complete its theory. Whoevthe Continent. The victorious principle has al-er observes attentively the genius of the Engways been constrained to tolerate the presence of its rivals, and to concede to each a certain share of influence.'

The advantageous side of the effect of this more equable development is evident enough.

'There can be no doubt that this simultaneous unfolding of the different social elements, has greatly contributed to make England attain earlier than any of the continental nations to the establishment of a government at once orderly and free. It is the very business of government to negotiate with all interests and all powers, to reconcile them with each other, and make them live and prosper together: now this, from a multitude of causes, was already in a peculiar degree the disposition, and even the actual state of the different elements of English society: a general, and tolerably regular government had therefore less difficulty in constituting itself. So, again, the essence of liberty is the simultaneous manifestation and action of all interests, all rights, all social elements and forces. England, therefore, was already nearer to it than most other states. From the sa ne causes, national good sense, and intelligence of public affairs, formed itself at an earlier period. Good sense in politics consists in taking account of all facts, appreciating them, and giving to each its place: this, in England, was a necessity of her social condition, a natural result of the course of her civilization.'

lish nation, will be struck with two facts-the sureness of its common sense and practical ability; its deficiency of general ideas and commanding intellect as applied to theoretical questions. If we open an English book of history, jurisprudence or any similar subject, we seldom find in it the real foundation, the ultimate reason of things. In all matters, and especially in politics, pure doctrine and philosophy-science, properly so called-have prospered far more on the Continent than in England; they have at least soared higher, with greater vigor and boldness. Nor does it admit of doubt, that the different character of the development of the two civilizations has greatly contributed to this result.'

From the London Quarterly Review. RELATION OF THE CLERGY TO THE PEOPLE.

Du Prêtre, de la Femme, de la Famille.

Par I. Michelet, 5me edition. Paris, 1845.

Having already published a review of this work, treating the general topics, and similar to the first part of the present article, we omit that and give our readers the larger and more important part, on a very interesting topic.-ED.

Or all the manifold blessings we owe to the Reformation, the greatest was that

which restored the minister of Christ to his fof a hostile and inhospitable world—of position as a citizen and as a man; the ab-much sin, which required profound and solrogation of the celibacy of the clergy; the itary penance-of much remorse, which has return from that monastic Christianity, been soothed and softened. They have which from the fourth century had held out taught industrial habits to rude and warlike a false model of perfection, to genuine prim-tribes, and fertilized deserts; they have itive Christianity. been the asyla of learning and the arts, the Believing, as we implicitly do, the whole schools from which issued the most powermonastic system to have come originally ful intellects throughout the middle ages. not from the shores of the Jordan, but from Of their inestimable services, especially of those of the Ganges-not from the foot of the Benedictines, to letters, what lover Carmel or Lebanon, but of the Himalaya; of letters would not be afraid lest he should believing it to be founded on a false philos-speak with less liberal gratitude than jusophy-the malignity of matter, and in con- tice would demand? sequence the sinfulness of every thing cor- So, too, the celibacy of the secular clerporeal; believing it to be a dastardly deser- gy-imperfectly as it was enforced, and tion of one half of our duty under the pre- perseveringly resisted or eluded, and theretence of exclusive devotion to the other-fore constantly producing the evil of prac the utter abnegation of one of the great tice inconsistent with theory, of life at war commandments of the Law, the love of man; with the established laws-nevertheless, in believing it to be directly opposite to the its time, produced much collateral and addoctrine of our Lord, who seems designed- ventitious good. It was not merely that the ly to reject the example of John the Baptist missionary priest, as well as the missionary as applicable to his disciples; believing that monk, was better qualified for the great the one or two passages in the New Testa- work to which he had devoted himself, by ment which can be thought to tend that being unincumbered with amiable weakway relate merely to the dangerous and af- nesses and with sympathies which might flicting times of the primitive Christians; have distracted the energies of his heart believing that the perfection of Christianity and soul; but there was a more profound is the active performance of duty, the devo- policy than at first appears in the stern tion, the dedication of every faculty of body measures of Gregory VII. to seclude the and of mind with which we were endowed clergy from mankind. Not only was an by God to the identical cause of God and unmarried clergy a more powerful instruhuman happiness; believing it to be incon- ment for the advancement of the Papal sistent with any pure and lofty conception sway, and an aristocracy necessary to mainof the Godhead, and of the true dignity and tain the great spiritual sovereignty, which destination of man; believing it to be low he aimed to set up above the temporal and selfish in its object-superstitious and thrones of Europe; but in the strong hereddegrading in its practices-at best but aitary tendencies of the feudal times, a mardreamy and indolent concentration of the individual upon himself under the fond supposition that he is in communion with God -or the degradation of our better faculties to coarse employinents, which there are and must be coarse natures enough to fulfil ;— yet, with all this, we hesitate not to do justice, and ample justice, to individual monks, to monasteries, and to monasticism itself. However it may appear to some of our In their time they have doubtless wrought readers, this whole question of the monasincalculable good-good which could not tic Christianity and the celibacy of the clerhave been wrought without them. The gy is by no means idle and irrelevant at the monk, because he has been a monk-at present hour. Our Ecclesiidolaters are not least, because he has not been encumbered content with the cathedral-they are lookwith earthly ties-has been able to rise to ing back with fond and undisguised regret the utmost height of religious self-sacrifice, to the monastery; they disdain the discomof Christian heroism in the cause of God, fited surplice, and yearn after the cowl and and of man. The monastery, at least in the scapulary. When we have men not the West, has been the holy refuge of much merely of recluse and studious temperahuman wretchedness, driven from the facement, with the disposition and habits of the

ried clergy would have become an hereditary caste, and finally sunk back, bearing with it the gradually alienated endowments of the Church into the mass of each nation. But this view requires far more than a passing sentence, and more indeed than all which hereafter we shall be able to bestow upon it.

but

founder of a religious order, revelling in the razor came not, he is the Prince of Peace, subtleties of the intellect like an old school- and steel is the sign and implement of war, man, with a conscious and well-tried power therefore are his locks unshorn; and they are of captivating young minds by the boldness filled with the drops of the night, the meaning and ingenuity of religious pardox; of which we have already seen, even the dew of the Holy Spirit, which refreshes the parched those too who have known the sanctifying and weary soul, watering the dry and sun-bakblessings and the sanctifying sorrows of do- ed soil, that it may bear fruits of holiness.mestic life, not as yet indeed condemning But we must not haste too fast: his locks are, the marriage of the clergy, but holding up as of a holy Nazarite, unshorn, the razor hath monastic celibacy as a rare gift, an especial not touched his head: yet how unlike the ringprivilege of God's designated saints, assumed with crisping pins, curled and plaited with lets of the wanton daughters of fashion, dressing the lofty indignation of insulted spirit- a hireling's art, divided hither and thither with uality against those who utterly deny the minutest care, redolent with luxurious perfirst principles of this doctrine-it may be fumes and scented oils; these are not ornatime to show even hastily and imperfectly ments but criminal devices; not the modest the grounds on which the English Church head-gear of the virtuous maiden, but impure has deliberately repudiated the whole sys

tem.

Among other startling publications of the day, Mr. Albany Christie (still we believe a professing Anglican) has lately given us a tract on Holy Virginity, adapted from St. Ambrose, for modern use-a mystic rhapsody in the worst style of that most unequal of the ancient fathers, strangely, and we must take the freedom to say, comically mingled up by the translator with allusions to modern manners. The boldness with which the authority of Scripture is dealt with in this little work is by no means the least curious point about it, considering that it is unscrupulously, no doubt from reverence, as proceeding from a holy father of the church, reproduced at this time.'Consider,' we read, that they were virgins who, in preference to the Apostles, first saw the resurrection of the Lord.'*. Now we read in St. Luke that it was Mary Magdalene and Joanna, and Mary the mother of James, and other women that were with them, which told these things unto the Apostles (xxiv. 10). As all biblical critics know, there is some difficulty in harmonizing the accounts of the Evangelists as to the coming of the women to the sepulchre ; but without entering into the question about Mary Magdalene, besides the maternity of the other Mary, we read of Joanna that she was the wife of Chuza, Herod's steward; and Salome (who is named in St. Mark, xv. 40) was probably the mother of Zebedee's children! But the Song of Solomon furnishes the great persuasives to Holy Virginity,

My locks, saith he, are filled with the drops of night' (Cant. v. 2). Upon his head

Tract on Holy Virginity, derived from St Ambrose, p. 7.

ments of a soul, if not a body, the victim of allurements to unchaste thoughts and enticeEngland, who walk with outstretched necks prostitution. These haughty daughters of and wanton eyes, walking aud mincing as they go, despise the degraded and wretched woman whom deceit has lured, or agonizing poverty has driven from the paths of virtue; think you that their virtue would be proof, if the fear of public infamy were withdrawn against the the thought of sin is no stranger to their deed of sin, when now so many acts imply that minds ?-p. 31.

So, according to this new treatise on the Unloveliness of Lovelocks,' (pardon this approximation of Old Prynne and St. Ambrose,) all young ladies who curl their hair, or have their hair curled by a hireling,' are in heart no better than the outcasts of the Strand!

'Shun, then, Christian virgins, the public shun the hot ball-room; the worldly bazaar walks, shun the places of public concourse; (the more worldly because hypocritical); the fashionable watering-places; ay, and the Church of God, which should be the house of prayer, but which is made the scene of man's display and man's idolatry, where Christ's litleones, the poor and wretched, cannot (for delicacy and pride exclude them) come to worship.'-p. 18.

This, if we could be amused by such things, would be an amusing confusion of modern antique notions and antipathies.St. Ambrose may possibly have had a convent chapel to send his recluses to; but are the young ladies of the new school not to go to Church at all-because, to the horror of Mr. Christie, they may find it necessary to sit in pews?

It is singular that these monastic notions, even partially and timidly admitted, seem to produce an indelicacy and even grossness of thought and sentiment, which in the

most innocent gaiety of manners, and in religious meditation. The true safeguard the most harmless amusements, can see no- of youthful manners is the sensitive delicathing but the deepest and most shameless cy which restricts from tampering with such corruption. Omnia munda mundis may be subjects; the strong will which dismisses a doubtful adage, but omnia immunda im- them at once, and concentres itself on other munds is irrefragable. The whole series subjects, on the business of life, on intelof 'Lives of the Saints,' in language severe- lectual pursuits, or even on sports or exerly pure, perpetually shows a coarseness of cises: but here by this one conflict being thought, we are persuaded more dangerous-represented as the great business of life, as ly immoral than works of a far lighter and the main object of spiritual ambition, no far less rigid tone.* We mean not only escape is left open; it does not naturally those perilous adventures in which almost recur, but is hourly and momentarily recallall their knight-errants of monkish valor ed; the virtue we have no doubt is often are tried-and from which they take refuge rendered absolutely unattainable by the inby plunging head over ears into cold water; cessant care for its attainment. and all the other strange conflicts with dæ- This almost beyond their perilous tammons, who seem to have a peculiar spite pering with truth, and endangering of all against this especial virtue. We dread faith, by demanding belief in the most puethe general effect of these writings on the rile miracles, as though they were Holy minds of young men, aye, and young wo-Writ, or at least insinuating that there is men too; for we have no doubt that the no gradation in the sin of unbelief-and beauty and simplicity with which a few at least of these very unequal biographies are composed the singular skill with which every thing which is, is depreciated, and every thing which has been is painted in the most captivating light-the consummate ar- There is a passage in the Life of St. tifice with which the love of novelty is dis- Gilbert,' which, profane and uninitiated as guised under a passion for ancient and neg- we are, we read with a shudder. The aulected truth-will obtain some female read-thor is speaking of certain dreams which ers. We dread it because throughout these determine the saint absolutely to forbid writings the minds of the pure of both sex- himself the sight of a woman. es, and especially of that which is purest by nature and by education, by innate modesty and tender maternal watchfulness, are forced to dwell on thoughts which recur frequently enough, without being thus fostered by being moulded up inseparably with *We suppose most of our readers are aware that the Lives of the English Saints,' publishing in small monthly numbers, were started with a preface by Mr Newman-and are generally considered as having been designed to supply the place of the suspended Tracts for the Times.'We have before us a dozen of these numbers

we must add a most melancholy hardness and intolerance-will confine the influence of these new hagiologists to a few, and those the younger readers, who will hereafter become wiser.

After an allusion, to our feelings most irreverent, to the Virgin Mary, he goes still further;— with, as usual, either a real or a studied ignorance of the meaning of the Bible. He who was infinitely more sinless by grace, even by nature impeccable, because he was the Lord from heaven, he has allowed it to be recorded that his disciples wondered that he talked with a woman.' That his disciples did not wonder at his talking with a woman, but at his talking with a woman of Samaria, what simple reader of the gospel will fail to perceive? (John iv. 27; compare verse 9) How many other passages in our Lord's life utterly refute this false monastic view of his character! Who are said to have 'ministered to him?'

We must add one or two extracts,-but they shall be passages of the more harmless

See some small but clever tracts, called Modern Hagiology,' in the first of which, p. 10, et seq, are some significant extracts (such as we hardly dare venture), and some sensible observations on the language of these stern asserters of the strictness of what they call Catholic morals. As this writer says- A saint according to teaching is plainly a person of no ordinary degree of natural viciousness, and of unusual and almost preternatural violence of animal passions. His sanctity consists mainly in the curious and farfetched ingenuity of the torments by which he contrives to keep himself within the bounds of decency. The example is that of St Cuthbert, a bishop, who, when he went to hold holy conver-bert, p. 49. sation with the abbess St. Ebba, took the precaution to cool himself every night "by standing up to his neck in the water, or in the chilly air!"

sort.

'Holy virginity is no less a portion of Christianity than holy penitence; and the denial of the virtue of the one most certainly impairs the full belief in the other.'-Life of St. Gil

The reader may not be prepared for the proof of this axiom-'for the communion