“They tell me it’s a haill month since it was a’ settled, but I hear
naething of the house or the plenishing, and no a word of what Jenny’s
to do. If they’re no wanting me, I’m no wanting them—ne’er a bit. It’s
aye the way guid service is rewarded; and whatfor should there be ony
odds with Jenny? I might have kent that muckle, if I had regarded
counsel, or thought of my ainsel; but aye Jenny’s foremost thought was
of them, for a’ such an ill body as she is now.”
And a tear was in Jenny’s eye, as she smoothed down the folds of Menie’s
dress—Menie’s finest dress, her own present, which Menie was to wear
to-night. And Menie’s ornaments are all laid out carefully upon the
table, everything she is likely to need, before Jenny’s lingering step
leaves the room. “I canna weel tell, for my pairt, what like life’ll be
without her,” muttered Jenny, as she went away. “I reckon no very muckle
worth the minding about; but I’m no gaun to burden onybody that doesna
want me—no, if I should never hae anither hour’s comfort a’ my days.”
And slowly, with many a backward glance and pause, Jenny withdrew.
Neglect is always hard to bear. Jenny believed herself to be left out of
their calculations—forgotten of those to whom she had devoted so many
years of her life; and Jenny, though she tried to be angry, could not
manage it, but felt her indignant eyes startled with strange tears. It
made a singular cloud upon her face this unusual emotion; the native
impatience only struggled through it fitfully in angry glimpses, though
Jenny was furious at herself for feeling so desolate, and very fain
would have thrown off her discomfort in a fuff—but far past the region
of the fuff was this her new-come solitude of heart. Her friends were
dead or scattered, her life was all bound up in her mistress and her
mistress’s child, and it was no small trial for Jenny to find herself
thus cast off and thrown aside.
The next who enters this room has a little heat about her, a certain
atmosphere of annoyance and displeasure. “I will be a burden”—unawares
the same words steal over Mrs Laurie’s lip, but the sound of her voice
checks her. Two or three steps back and forward through the room, a long
pause before the window, and then her brow is cleared. You can see the
shadows gradually melting away, as clouds melt from the sky, and in
another moment she has left the room, to resume her place down stairs.
This vacant room—nothing can you learn from its calm good order, its
windows open to the sun, its undisturbed and home-like quiet, of what
passes within its walls. There is Menie’s little Bible on the table; it
is here where Menie brings her doubts and troubles, to resolve them, if
they may be resolved. But there is no whisper here to tell you what
happens to Menie, when, as has already chanced, some trouble comes upon
her which it is not easy to put away. Hush! This time the door opens
slowly, gravely—this time it is a footstep very sober, something
languid, which comes in; and Menie Laurie puts up her hand to her
forehead, as if a pain was there; but not a word says Menie Laurie’s
reverie—not a word. If she is sad, or if she is merry, there is no way
to know. She goes about her toilette like a piece of business, and gives
no sign.
But this month has passed almost like age upon Menie Laurie’s face. You
can see that grave thoughts are common now, everyday guests and friends
in her sobered life, and that she has begun to part with her romances of
joy and noble life—has begun to realise more truly what manner of future
it is which lies before her. Nothing evil, perhaps—little hardship in
it; no great share of labour, of poverty, or care—but no longer the
grand ideal life, the dream of youthful souls.
And now she stands before the window, wearing Jenny’s gown. It is only
to look out if any one is visible upon the road—but there is no
passenger yet approaching Heathbank, and Menie goes calmly down stairs.
As it happens, the drawing-room is quite vacant of all but Nelly Panton,
who sits prim by the wall in one corner. Nelly is not an invited guest,
but has come as a volunteer, in right of her brother’s invitation, and
Miss Annie shows her sense of the intrusion by leaving her alone.
“Na, I’m no gaun to bide very lang in London,” said Nelly. “Ye see, Miss
Menie, you’re an auld friend. I’m no so blate, but I may tell you. I
didna come up here ance errand for my ain pleasure, but mostly to see
Johnnie, and to try if I couldna get ony word of a very decent lad, ane
Peter Drumlie, that belangs about our countryside. We were great
friends, him and me, and then we had an outcast—you’ll ken by
yoursel—but we’ve made it up again since I came to London, and I’m gaun
hame to get my providing, and comfort my mother a wee while, afore I
leave her athegither. It’s a real duty comforting folk’s mother, Miss
Menie. I’m sure I wouldna forget that for a’ the lads in the world.”
“And where are you to live, Nelly?” Nelly’s moralising scarcely called
for an answer.
“We havena just made up our minds; they say ae marriage aye makes mair,”
said Nelly, with a grim smile. “Miss Menie, you’ve set us a’ agaun.”
Perhaps Menie did not care to be classed with Nelly Panton. “July Home
will be a very young wife,” she said; “I think your brother should be
very happy with her, Nelly.”
“I wouldna wonder,” said Nelly, shortly; “but you see, Miss Menie, our
Johnnie’s a well-doing lad, and micht ha’e looked higher, meaning nae
offence to you; though nae doubt it’s true what Randall Home said when
he was speaking about this. ‘Lithgow,’ says he (for he ca’s Johnnie by
his last name—it’s a kind o’ fashion hereaway), ‘if you get naething
with your wife, I will take care to see you’re no cumbered with onybody
but hersel;’ which nae doubt is a great comfort, seeing there micht ha’e
been a haill troop of friends, now that Johnnie’s getting up in the
world.”
“What was that Randall Home said?” Menie asked the question in a very
clear distinct tone, cold and steady and unfaltering—“What do you say he
said?—tell me again.”
“He said, Johnnie wouldna be troubled with nane of her friends,” said
Nelly; “though he has her to keep, a bit wee silly thing, that can do
naething in a house—and nae doubt a maid to keep to her forby—that he
wouldna have ony of her friends a burden on him; and a very wise thing
to say, and a great comfort. I aye said he was a sensible lad, Randall
Home. Eh, preserve me!”
For Randall Home stands before her, his eyes glowing on her with haughty
rage. He has heard it, every single deliberate word, and Randall is no
coward—he comes in person to answer for what he has said.
Rise, Menie Laurie! Slowly they gather over us, these kind shadows of
the coming night; no one can see the momentary faltering which inclines
you to throw yourself down there upon the very ground, and weep your
heart out. Rise; it is you who are stately now.
“This is true?”
She is so sure of it, that there needs no other form of question, and
Menie lays her hand upon the table to support herself, and stands firmly
before him waiting for his answer. Why is it that now, at this moment,
when she should be most strong, the passing wind brings to her, as in
mockery, an echo of whispering mingled voices—the timid happiness of
July Home? But Menie draws up her light figure, draws herself apart from
the touch of her companions, and stands, as she fancies she must do
henceforth, all her life, alone.
“This is true?”
“I would disdain myself if I tried to escape by any subterfuge,” said
Randall, proudly; “I might answer that I never said the words this woman
attributes to me; but that I do not need to tell you. I would not
deceive you, Menie. I never can deny what I have given expression to;
and you are right—it is true.”
And Randall thinks he hears a voice, wavering somewhere, far off, and
distant like an echo—not coming from these pale lips which move and form
the words, but falling out upon the air—faint, yet distinct, not to be
mistaken. “I am glad you have told me. I thank you for making no
difficulty about it: this is very well.”
“Menie! you are not moved by this gossip’s story? This that I said has
no effect on you? Menie! Is a woman like this to make a breach between
you and me?”
In stolid malice, Nelly Panton sits still, and listens with a certain
melancholy enjoyment of the mischief she has made, protesting, under her
breath, that “she meant nae ill; she aye did a’thing for the best;”
while Randall, forgetful of his own acknowledgment, repeats again and
again his indignant remonstrance, “a woman like this!”
“No, she has no such power,” said Menie firmly—“no such power. Pardon
me—I am wanted to-night. My strength is not my own to be wasted now; we
can conclude this matter another time.”
Before he could say a word, the door had closed upon her. There was a
bustle without, a glimmer of coming lights upon the wall. In a few
minutes the room was lighted up, the lady of the house in her presiding
place—and Randall started with angry pride from the place where he
stood, by the side of Nelly Panton, whose gloomy unrelieved figure
suddenly stood out in bold relief upon the brightened wall.
Another time! Menie Laurie has not gone to ponder upon what this other
conference shall be—she is not by her own window—she is not out of
doors—she has gone to no such refuge. Where she never went before, into
the heart of Miss Annie’s preparations—into the bustle of Miss Annie’s
hospitality—shunning even Jenny, far more shunning her mother, and
waiting only till the room is full enough, to give her a chance of
escaping every familiar eye. This is the first device of Menie’s mazed,
bewildered mind. These many days she has lived in hourly expectation of
some such blow; but it stuns her when it comes.
Forlorn! forlorn! wondering if it is possible to hide this misery from
every eye—pondering plans and schemes of concealment, trying to
invent—do not wonder, it is a natural impulse—some generous lie. But
Menie’s nature, more truthful than her will, fails in the effort. The
time goes on, the lingering moments swell into an hour. Music is in her
ears, and smiling faces glide before her and about her, till she feels
this dreadful pressure at her heart no longer tolerable, and bursts away
in a sudden passion, craving to be alone.
Another heart, restless by reason of a gnawing unhappiness, wanders out
and in of these unlighted chambers—oftenest coming back to this one,
where the treasures of its life rest night by night. This wandering
shadow is not a graceful one—these pattering, hasty footsteps have
nothing in them of the softened lingering tread of meditation. No, poor
Jenny, little of sentiment or grace embellishes your melancholy—yet it
is hard to find any poem so full of pathos as a desolate heart, even
such a one as beats in your homely breast to-night.
Softly—the room is not vacant now, as it was when you last entered here.
Some one stands by the window, stooping forward to look at the stars;
and while you linger by the door, a low cry, half a sigh, half a moan,
breaks the silence faintly—not the same voice which just now bore its
part so well below;—not the same, for that voice came from the lips
only—this is out of the heart.
“Bairn, you’re no weel—they’ve a’ wearied you,” said Jenny, stealing
upon her in the darkness: “lie down and sleep; it’s nae matter for the
like of me, but when you sigh, it breaks folk’s hearts.”
The familiar voice surprised the watcher into a sudden burst of childish
tears. All the woman failed in this great trial. “Oh, Jenny, dinna tell
my mother!” Menie Laurie was capable of no other thought.
THE RUSSIAN CHURCH AND THE PROTECTORATE IN TURKEY.
Before many weeks shall have gone over, perhaps while these sheets are
passing through the press, we shall be able to judge of the accuracy of
Lord Ellenborough’s opinion, as expressed in the House of Lords on the
6th February, that we are on the eve of one of the most formidable wars
that ever this country was engaged in. Yes; within a short period from
the present date much will be known; the Russian problem will be near
its solution. The mystery of that force, which is said to be
irresistible, and of those resources said to be inexhaustible, will be
laid bare to the world. We shall know if all that we have been told of
that vast power which has kept Europe in awe, is real; if the colossal
idol which all have gazed on with a feeling that cannot be accurately
described, does not stand on feet of clay. We confess that recent events
have somewhat weakened the general faith in the overwhelming strength of
Russia, and people begin to have some doubt whether the world has not
been imposed upon. With her vast territorial extent, including nearly
one-seventh part of the terrestrial portion of the globe and one
twenty-seventh of its entire surface, and her varied population,
comprising nearly one-ninth of the human race, she has spoken as if she
could domineer over all Europe; and until the Pruth was passed, and the
Danube became once more the theatre of battle, mankind seemed, if not
entirely to admit, at least unwilling to dispute the claim. The combats
of Oltenitza and Citale have, we suspect, disturbed that belief. Foreign
and all but hostile flags have, within the last few weeks, floated
almost within sight of Sebastopol; the squadrons of England and France
have swept the hitherto unapproachable Euxine, from the Thracian
Bosphorus to Batoun, and from Batoun back to Beicos Bay, and her fleet
has not ventured to cross their path. Should Austria, listening to her
evil genius, prove false to her own interests, we believe that the
anticipations of the noble Lord referred to will be realised. Should she
consult her own safety, and make common cause with those whose warlike
preparations are not for aggression, but defence, we still incline to
the opinion that hostilities may be limited to their original theatre—to
be temporarily arrested, if not closed, by diplomatic intervention. The
unsuccessful issue, at least to the date at which we write, of Count
Orloff’s mission, gives us some hope that such will be the case; but a
very short time will enable us to judge whether the advance of a _corps
d’armée_ to the Servian frontier is to aid Russian aggression, or to
act, if necessary, against it.
An aggressive spirit has invariably marked the policy of Russia from the
time of Peter the Great. Long harassed by internal enemies, and
sometimes struggling for existence, she at length was freed from the
dangers which had menaced her from abroad. By a fortunate concurrence of
circumstances, the moment when her government became constituted, and
began to enjoy its liberty of action, the neighbouring states, from the
Baltic to the Caspian, entered into their period of weakness. The wild
ambition and the mad enterprise of Charles XII. occasioned the decline
of Sweden. The chivalrous monarch, the conqueror of Narva, the
vanquished of Pultova, perished in the ditch of Frederickshall. Peter
triumphed over his most formidable enemy; and, if he did not from that
moment begin his aggression in the Ottoman territory, he was at all
events no longer embarrassed by the dangerous diversions in the north.
There still, however, remained an obstacle to his designs on those
magnificent possessions of the Osmanlis, which have at all times
possessed the fatal privilege of attracting the cupidity of the northern
barbarian. There still remained Poland; but her anarchy, her internal
convulsions, inseparable from her anomalous institutions, proved to be
no less profitable to the Muscovite than the madness of the Scandinavian
hero; and from the day of her dismemberment, Turkey became the permanent
object of the ambition which, even as we write, threatens to convulse
Europe.
It rarely happens that up to the close of a long war the original cause
of quarrel continues the same. The first dissension disappears as war
progresses, and, in the numerous complications which hostilities give
rise to, the belligerents themselves either forget, or do not assign the
same importance to the question which originally arrayed them in arms
against each other. Though the war between Russia and Turkey has not yet
a remote date, and though hostilities have not yet been formally
declared between Russia and the Western Powers, notwithstanding the
recall of their respective ambassadors, we still fear that the public is
beginning to lose sight of the primary grounds of quarrel between the
Czar and the Sultan, and which has led to the present state of things.
The pretext put forward by Russia for intervention in the Ottoman empire
is her desire to “protect” the ten millions of Christians of the Greek
Church who are subjects of the Porte; these ten millions professing the
same faith as the subjects of the Emperor of Russia, and living under
the tyrannous rule of an infidel government. We admit the plausibility
of that claim, and we are aware how easily the generous sympathies of a
Christian people can be roused in favour of such a cause. We can
appreciate the feelings of those who are persuaded that the moment has
at length arrived when the Cross shall be planted on the mosques of
Stamboul, and the orthodox believer take the place of the Mussulman. The
claim to a Protectorate over ten millions of suffering Greeks in the
European territory of the Sultan has been described as a cover, under
which Russia aims at the possession of Constantinople, and, in fact, at
the extension of her dominion from the Carpathian to the Danube, and
from the Danube to the Sea of Marmora; but the Czar has solemnly and
repeatedly declared that he had no such ambition, and that the sole
motive which actuated him was to protect a population who professed the
self-same religion as himself, he being the visible head of the Eastern
Church, and recognised as such by the Eastern or Greek Christians; and
the refusal of the Porte to grant that Protectorate is the primary cause
of the war. Without examining whether any, or what conditions would
justify a foreign government in imposing its protection on the subjects
of an independent state, we may be permitted to say something of the
nature of the religion whose champion the Czar professes to be; of the
alleged homogeneity of the Eastern and Russian Churches, for on this the
whole question turns; and of the advantages likely to accrue to the
Greeks from Russian protection.
Among the many errors likely to be dissipated by the minute discussion
which the Eastern question has undergone in the public press of this and
other countries, not the least is that which has reference to the
Emperor of Russia as the natural Protector of the Christian communities
of the East. The hardihood with which this claim has been constantly put
forward, and the silent acquiescence with which it seems to have been
admitted by those who should know better, have imposed upon the world.
Even now, they who resist the formal establishment of the influence of
Russia over the internal affairs of Turkey, do so more by reason of the
political consequences of that usurpation to the rest of Europe, than
with the thought of disputing the abstract right of the head of the
“Orthodox Faith” to the Protectorate he lays claim to. These
pretensions, like many others we could mention, will not stand the test
of examination. We do not learn, on any satisfactory evidence, that the
Christian populations of the Ottoman empire have, during the last ten
months, received with sympathy or encouragement the prospect of Russian
protection; nor have they, so far as we know, exhibited any very earnest
longing for the introduction of the knout as an element of government.
The population of independent Greece may, and, we have no doubt, do,
indulge in the harmless dream of a new Byzantine empire to be raised on
the ruins of that which Mahomet II. won from their fathers; and they
would doubtless rejoice that the domination of the Osmanlis were put an
end to by Russia, or any other power, on condition of being their
successors, as they were their predecessors. We believe that to this
sort of revolution the aspirations of the Greeks are limited. But that
people dispute the claim of the Czar to the Pontificate of the “Orthodox
Faith,” and reject the idea of a temporal submission to him. The Greek
Church, however, does not constitute the only Christian community of the
Ottoman empire. Other congregations are to be found there, subjects also
of the Porte, and who have not less claim to the protection of the
various states of Europe, when protection is needed; but who still less
desire that Russia should be their sole protector.
The points of difference between the Greek and Latin Churches are
familiar to the world. But it may not be so generally known that, while
the Russian branch of the former professes to preserve the Byzantine
dogmas as its basis, the condition of its hierarchy, and the mechanism
of its discipline, have become so altered with the lapse of years, that,
at the present day, there exists no identity in this respect that would
justify the head of the Russian Church in his pretensions to a temporal
or spiritual protectorate over that church whose administrator and head
is the Patriarch of Constantinople. Besides the difference of language,
which is not without its importance—the one speaking Greek, the other
Sclavonic—the Church of Constantinople still boasts that she has
preserved her Patriarch, who is independent of secular interference in
spirituals, while no such privilege belongs to Russia. A serious
difference, too, exists between the Russian and Greek Churches (and one
which would create new schisms and new convulsions) on the important
question of baptism. Converts are admitted into the pale of the former
from other communities, when they have been already baptized, without
the obligation of again receiving the sacrament; while the Church of
Constantinople makes the repetition of the sacrament indispensable in
similar cases. The difference of church government is of the greatest
importance: the Greeks have never admitted that the Holy Synod of St
Petersburg, established by Peter the Great, represents in any sense the
spiritual authority which he forcibly overthrew. The substitution of the
chief of the state for it was never pretended to be otherwise than for
political purposes, and as a means of realising the ambitious and
aggressive designs of the Czar; and, while we do not deny the success it
has met with, we believe that, since that event, the Russian clergy, as
a body, has become the most ignorant and the most servile of any
ecclesiastical corporation that now exists. The edict of Peter the Great
admits the merely temporal object he had in view. “A spiritual
authority,” it states, “which is represented by a corporation, or
college, will never excite in the nation so much agitation and
effervescence as a single chief of the ecclesiastical order. The lower
classes of the people are incapable of comprehending the difference
between the spiritual and secular authority. When they witness the
extraordinary respect and honour which encompass a supreme pontiff,
their admiration and wonder are so excited, that they look upon the
chief of the Church as a second sovereign, whose dignity is equal, or
even superior, to that of the monarch himself; and they are disposed to
attach to the ecclesiastical rank a character of power superior to the
other. Now, as it is incontestable that the common people indulge in
such reflections, what, we ask, would be the case if the unjust disputes
of an arbitrary clergy were added to light up a conflagration?” At the
time this edict was issued, the Russian Church had already lost its
patriarch. Full twenty years had elapsed since that event; and if ever
the mitre of a prelate rivalled the diadem of an emperor, it was not in
the reign of Peter that such an instance was to be found. No serious
antagonism of the kind did or could exist in Russia; and the real object
of the abolition of the patriarchate was, to combine with the absolutism
of the sovereign the prestige of spiritual supremacy—that the Czar might
not only say, with Louis XIV., “The State! _I_ am the State;” but also,
“The Church! I am the Church.”
The Holy Synod of St Petersburg is, it is true, composed of some of the
highest dignitaries of the Russian Church, (taken from the monastic
order); but these are appointed by the secular authority; are presided
over by a layman who represents the Czar, and whose _veto_ can suspend,
or even annul, the most solemn resolutions of the Synod, even when
_unanimously_ adopted. The person who occupied for years, and who, we
believe, still occupies the important post of President of the Supreme
Ecclesiastical Council, which regulates and decides on all matters
concerning the discipline and administration of the Church of Russia, is
a general of cavalry—General Protuson! The body thus controlled by a
military chief, may be increased in numbers, or reduced, according to
the pleasure of the Czar; but those who ordinarily constitute that
Ecclesiastical Board are the metropolitan of St Petersburg, the
archbishops, a bishop, the Emperor’s confessor, an archimandrite (one
degree lower than a bishop), the chaplain-general of the naval and
military forces, and an arch-priest. But, whatever be the rank, the
learning, or the piety of the Synod, one thing must be well understood
by them;—they must never dare to express an opinion, or give utterance
to a thought, in opposition to the Czar. The edicts of the Synod bear
the imperial impress; they are invariably headed with this _formula_,
“By the most high will, command, and conformably to the sublime wishes
of his Majesty, &c. &c.” If it be alleged that the authority of the Holy
Synod, with its bearded, booted, and _sabred_ president, relates merely
to the temporal administration of the Church, and that should a question
of dogma arise recourse would be had to an _Œcumenical Council_,
composed of all the churches of the Oriental rite, we reply that the
superintendence of the Synod is _not_ confined to points of mere
administration or discipline. The canonisation of a saint, for instance,
is not a matter of mere administration. When a subject is proposed for
that distinction—and the Russian Hagiology is more scandalously filled
than the Roman in the worst times of the Papacy—it is the Synod, that
is, the Emperor, who decides on the claims to worship of the unknown
candidate, whose remains may have been previously sanctified by the
gross superstition of a barbarous peasantry. It is true that, in
consequence of some notorious criminals having, not many years ago, been
added to the list of orthodox saints, the Emperor, since the discovery
of this, has manifested considerable repugnance to exercising this
important part of his pontifical functions. He has, on recent occasions,
refused his _fiat_ of canonisation. A few years ago, some human bones
were dug up on the banks of a stream in the government of Kazan, which,
for some reason or other, were supposed to possess miraculous powers. A
cunning speculator thought it a regular godsend; and petitions were
forthwith sent to St Petersburg claiming divine honours for the unknown.
The petitions were repeatedly rejected, but as often pressed on the
Emperor. His Pontifical Majesty, who was assured, on high authority,
that the claims of the present candidate were quite as well founded as
those of many in the _Hagiology_, at last consented to issue his order
of canonisation, but roundly swore that he would not grant another
saintship as long as he lived. Yet it is not doubted that the
opportunity offered by the present “holy war” of continuing the sacred
list will be made use of unsparingly.
In other Churches the sacerdotal character is indelible; it is conferred
by the ecclesiastical authority, and whether by the imposition of hands,
or any other formality, cannot be destroyed even where the party is
suspended from his sacred functions, or prohibited altogether from
performing them. But neither suspension, nor degradation, can be
considered as a matter of mere administration, or ordinary discipline;
and the Emperor’s military representative has it in his power to decide
on the degradation of any clergyman, and to completely efface the
sacerdotal character acquired by ordination.
But, supposing the improbable event of an _Œcumenical Council_, in which
the various Churches of the East should enter as component parts, in
what manner, we may be permitted to ask, would the Russians claim to be
represented? Would the Patriarch of Constantinople, or those of Antioch,
Jerusalem, and Alexandria, who are under his spiritual jurisdiction, and
who pronounce the Muscovite Church as, if not heretical, at least
schismatical, submit to be presided over by an aide-de-camp of the Czar;
or would they recognise, in favour of his Majesty, the quality of
impeccability, or infallibility, which they refuse to the head of the
Latin Church?
With that complete dependence in spiritual as in temporal government on
the chief of the State, and that debasing servitude of the Russian
Church, may be compared with advantage the immunities and privileges of
the Church of Constantinople even under the Mussulman government. Its
Patriarch is the chief of the Greek communities, the president of their
Synod, and the sovereign judge, without interference on the part of the
Sultan’s authority, of all civil and religious matters relating to these
communities which may be brought before it. The Patriarch, and the
twelve metropolitans who, under his presidency, compose the Synod, or
Grand Council of the Greek _nation_, are exempt from the _Haratch_, or
personal impost. The imposts the Greek _nation_ pays to the government
are apportioned, not by the Mussulman authorities, but by its own
archbishops and bishops. Those prelates are _de officio_ members of the
municipal councils, by the same right as the Turkish governors and
muftis. The cadis and governors are bound to see to the execution of the
decisions or judgments of the bishops, in all that relates to their
dioceses respectively; and to enforce the payment of the contributions
which constitute the ecclesiastical revenues. The clergy of the Greek
Church receive from each family of their own communion an annual
contribution, for the decent maintenance of public worship. They
celebrate marriages, pronounce divorces, draw up wills, and from all
these acts derive a considerable revenue; and, in certain cases, they
are authorised to receive legacies bequeathed for pious objects. For
every judgment pronounced by their tribunals, the Patriarch and
metropolitans are entitled to a duty on the value of the property in
litigation, of ten per cent. They have the power of sentencing to fine,
to imprisonment, to corporal punishment, and to exile, independently of
the spiritual power they possess, and which they not rarely exercise, of
excommunication. The Patriarch and the prelates are paid a fixed
contribution by the priests to whom the higher functions of the ministry
are confided; and these, in turn, receive a proportional amount from the
clergy under their immediate superintendence. The incomes of the
Patriarchs of Jerusalem, Antioch, and Alexandria, of the thirty-two
archbishops, and the one hundred and forty bishops of the Ottoman
empire, are paid out of these public contributions.
These immunities present, as we have said, a striking contrast with the
condition of the orthodox Church in Russia. A Church so endowed, and
with powers over the millions who belong to its communion, would
naturally tempt an ambitious sovereign to become its master under the
name of Protector. We discard completely any inquiry into the relative
merits of the two communities; but we think it must be evident to any
impartial mind, that the protectorate of the Czar, in his character of
head of the orthodox faith, would make him the supreme ruler over the
Ottoman empire in Europe.
We do not mean to allege that the immunities of the Christian population
have been faithfully respected by the pashas, the cadis, or other agents
of the Porte. We admit that most of what has been said of the
intolerance and the corruption of Turkish officials is true, and that
acts of oppression and cruelty have been perpetrated, which call for the
severest reprehension, and require the interference of the Christian
governments of Europe. But what we dispute is, the exclusive right of
the Emperor of Russia to such intervention or to such protectorate.
The Church of Constantinople regards that of St Petersburg as
schismatical, however nearly they approach in some respects; and so far
from acknowledging a right of Protectorate, either in the Synod or the
Emperor, she claims over her younger and erring sister all that
superiority which is imparted by primogeniture. She would reject the
claim of Russia to supremacy, and refuse to be administered by a servile
Synod, with a nominee of the Czar for President. To submit to that
Protectorate would be to admit foreign authority; that admission would
involve the loss of her Patriarch, the evidence of her independence; and
to this conviction may be traced the indifference of the Greek
population to Russian influence, and the co-operation its clergy has
given to the Porte.
But, scattered amid the immense population which are subject to the
Sultan, may be found communions not belonging to the Confession of
Photius as adopted by the Eastern Churches, and still less to the
schismatical branch of it which is known as the Russian Church. These
communions have no relation, affinity, or in fact anything whatever in
common with the Synod of St Petersburg, or the Czar, whom they regard as
a spiritual usurper, and the creed he professes as all but heretical.
The Eutychian Armenians amount to no less than 2,400,000 persons, of
whom nearly 80,000 are actually united to the Latin Church; but,
whatever be the difference in dogma or ceremonial between them, they
unite in opposition to the Synod of St Petersburg, and in submission to
the Porte. There are moreover, upwards of a million of Roman Catholics
and united Greeks—that is, Greeks who admit the supremacy of the Pope,
while observing their own ceremonial, and who, it will not be
questioned, have an equal right to protection, where protection is
requisite. We can easily understand the interference of the European
powers on behalf of those communities among whom are to be found persons
of the same religious belief as themselves; but we cannot understand on
what grounds an _exclusive_ claim is put forward by a power which can
have no sympathy with them, and which has destroyed the most important
link that connected the Church of St Petersburg with that of the
Patriarch. The possession of Constantinople by the Russians would, we
are convinced, be followed by the destruction of the independence of the
Eastern Church, the substitution of some Russian general or admiral,
Prince Menschikoff perhaps, or Prince Gortschakoff, or whoever may
happen to be the favourite of the day, for the venerable Patriarch; and
by the most cruel persecution, not perhaps so much from religious
intolerance, as for the same reasons assigned by Peter the Great for his
abolition of the patriarchal dignity. The treatment of the united Greeks
of the Russian empire, the Catholics of Poland and of the Muscovite
provinces, is sufficient to show to those who, _now_ at all events, live
tranquilly under the rule of the Sultan, what they have to expect from
the tolerance, the equity, or the mercy of such a Russian Protector.
One-fourth of the Latin population ruled over by the Czar is made up of
various religious sects and forms of worship—Catholicism, Lutheranism,
Calvinism, Mahometanism, Judaism, Lamaism, Schamaism, &c. In theory
these different persuasions have a right to toleration; but in practice
the case is different. The jealousy of the Czars, and their
determination to reduce all that comes within their grasp to the same
dead level of servitude, cannot endure a difference of any kind,
religious or political; and pretexts are never wanting for persecutions,
which have been compared to those of the worst days of the Roman
emperors. The Baltic provinces, Lithuania and Poland, testify to the
truth of these allegations. It appears clear, then, that the Christian
communities of the Ottoman empire do not require the protection or
domination of Russia, which would crush all alike.
We beg to point out another, and a material error into which the
generality of people have fallen with reference to the Christian
population of Turkey in Europe. The oppression of a Christian people by
a misbelieving despotism is sufficient, of itself, to enlist the
sympathies of a civilised and tolerant nation; and the fact of that
oppression being practised by a small minority over a multitude
composing three-fourths of the population of the Ottoman empire in
Europe, is denounced as a monstrous anomaly; and the public indignation
has been roused at the idea of scarcely three millions and a half of
Turks grinding to the dust more than ten millions of Christians. We
execrate religious oppression as much as any one can do; and whether the
persecuted be numerous or few, one or one thousand, the crime is, in
principle, the same. But we can show that, in the present instance, the
aggravating circumstance of so great a difference in numbers does not
exist. Those who speak of ten millions of Greek Christians being
oppressed by three millions of Turks, forget, or may not be aware, that
Moldavia and Wallachia, known as the Danubian Principalities, and now
“protected” to the utmost by synods of another kind from that of St
Petersburg—by military tribunals, and martial law—contain a population
of above four millions, all of whom, with the exception of about fifty
thousand Hungarian Catholics, are members of the Greek, though not of
the Russo-Greek Church. Now, the Moldo-Wallachians are, in their
domestic administration, independent of the Porte, the tie which
attaches them to it—the payment of a comparatively small tribute—being
of the slenderest kind. The Principalities are governed by their own
princes or hospodars, formerly named for life, and, since the convention
of 1849 between Russia and the Porte, for seven years; they are selected
from among their own boyards, and receive investiture only from the
Sultan. The Moldo-Wallachian army is recruited from the Moldo-Wallachian
population, and is organised on the Russian plan, with Russian
staff-officers. In neither of the three provinces is there a Turkish
garrison, nor a Turkish authority of any kind, nor a single Turkish
soldier; there is consequently no Turkish oppression or persecution.
Servia, with a population of about a million, mostly Christians of the
Greek communion, is equally independent of the Porte. The Turks have, it
is true, a garrison in Belgrade, limited, by treaty with Austria, to a
certain force; and Belgrade itself is the residence of a Pasha; but,
beyond this trifling military occupation, the acknowledgment, as a
matter of form, of the supremacy of the Sultan, and a small tribute in
money, nothing else is left them. And, as in the case of the Danubian
provinces, the internal government is entirely in the hands of the
Servians themselves. The liberal institutions established in Servia by
Prince Milosch Obrenowitsch, were not disturbed or interfered with by
the Porte, to which they gave no umbrage, but were overthrown by Russian
intrigue. In Servia no oppression, no persecution, is or can be
practised by the Turks, who are powerless. Thus, we have about five
millions of population to be deducted from the ten millions said to be
mercilessly oppressed, outraged, and persecuted by Mussulman
bigotry;—and also said to be eager for the religious Protectorate of
Russia.
The Danubian Principalities were formerly governed by princes called
_waywodes_, who were appointed by the Sultan. Those waywodes, it is
true, exercised every species of oppression; but our readers will
perhaps be surprised when they learn that these provincial tyrants were
_not_ Mussulmans: they were _Christians_, and Christians of the same
communion as the people whom they ruled over; and they were selected
because they were Christians, to administer Christian dependencies. The
waywodes were Fanariote Greeks, and denizens of Constantinople. We do
not deny that the Turkish government were bound to see that their
provinces were properly administered; but they were powerless to repress
these abuses, as they were powerless to repress the abuses in the
Turkish Pashalicks.
The influence of Russia for a long time, and particularly for the last
twenty-five years, has been paramount in the Danubian Principalities. We
have shown that the Moldo-Wallachians, with a slight exception, prefer
the Greek rite; but there is no evidence that they have any religious
sympathies with the Church of which the Emperor of Russia is the head.
The Moldo-Wallachians also regard the Russian dogmas as schismatic, and
recognise only the religious supremacy of the Patriarch of
Constantinople. In Paris there is a Russian chapel for the use of the
Russian embassy, the residents of that nation, and the few subjects of
Independent Greece who may think it proper, or useful, to attend Russian
worship. The Moldo-Wallachians who also reside in the French capital
have been often pressed to attend that chapel, with a view, no doubt, to
establish in the eyes of the world a homogeneity which in reality does
not exist. As a proof of the antipathy between the two communions, we
quote a passage from a discourse delivered on the occasion of the
opening of a temporary place of worship for the Moldo-Wallachians by the
Archimandrite Suagoano. To those who still believe that there exists the
bond of a common faith between the Church of Constantinople and that of
St Petersburg, and that the Moldo-Wallachians, or the Greeks of the
Ottoman empire, desire a Russian Protectorate, we recommend the perusal
of the following, which was pronounced to a numerous congregation in the
beginning of January last. “When we expressed a desire,” said the
archimandrite, “to found a chapel of our own rite, we were told that a
Russian chapel already existed in Paris, and we were asked why the
Roumains (Moldo-Wallachians) do not frequent it? What! Roumains to
frequent a Russian place of worship! Is it then forgotten that they can
never enter its walls, and that the Wallachians who die in Paris,
forbid, at their very last hour, that their bodies should be borne to a
Muscovite chapel, and declare that the presence of a Russian priest
would be an insult to their tomb. Whence comes this irreconcilable
hatred? That hatred is perpetuated by the difference of language. The
Russian tongue is Sclavonic; _ours_ is Latin. Is there in fact a single
Roumain who understands the language of the Muscovites? That hatred is
just; for is not Russia our mortal enemy? Has she not closed up our
schools, and debarred us from all instruction, in order to sink our
people into the depths of barbarism, and to reduce them the more easily
to servitude? On that hatred I pronounce a blessing; for the Russian
Church is a schism which the Roumains reject; because the Russian Church
has separated from the great Eastern Church; because the Russian Church
does not recognise as its head the Patriarch of Constantinople; because
it does not receive the Holy Unction of Byzantium; because it has
constituted itself into a Synod of which the Czar is the despot; and
because that Synod, in obedience to his orders, has changed its worship,
has fabricated an unction which it terms holy, has suppressed or changed
the fast days, and the Lents as established by our bishops; because it
has canonised Sclavonians who are apocryphal saints, such as Vladimir,
Olga, and so many others whose names are unknown to us; because the rite
of Confession, which was instituted to ameliorate and save the penitent,
has become, by the servility of the Muscovite clergy, an instrument for
spies for the benefit of the Czar; in fine, because that Synod has
violated the law, and that its reforms are arbitrary, and are made to
further the objects of despotism. These acts of impiety being so
notorious, and those truths so known, who shall now maintain that the
Russian Church is not schismatic? Our Councils reject it; our canons
forbid us to recognise it; our Church disavows it; and all who hold to
the faith, and whom she recognises for her children, are bound to
respect her decision, and to consider the Russian rite as a schismatic
rite. Such are the motives which prevent the Roumains from attending the
Russian chapel in Paris!” This address was received with enthusiasm by
the assemblage. Letters of felicitation have been received by the
archimandrite from his unhappy brethren of the Principalities, who are
driven with the bayonet to the churches to chant _Te Deum_ for Russian
victories; and, impoverished as they are, the prelates and priests of
Wallachia send their mites to Paris, to aid in the construction of a
true Greek church.[2]
It would be unjust to charge any religious community with the
responsibility of the crimes or vices of individual members. The police
offices and law courts in our own country occasionally disclose cases of
moral depravity among members of the clerical profession; but these
cases are few, we are happy to say, in comparison with the number of
pious and learned men that compose the body. Nor do we pronounce a
sweeping anathema on the Russo-Greek Church, because, with the exception
of, as we are informed, a few of the superior dignitaries, no
ecclesiastical corporation can produce more examples of gross ignorance
and vicious habits. The degradation, the miserable condition of the mass
of the Russian clergy, the pittance they receive from the State, being
insufficient to keep body and soul together, and the almost total want
of instruction, are, no doubt, the cause of this state of things.
Marriage is a primary and indispensable condition for the priesthood;
and the death of the wife, unless where a special exemption is accorded
by the Synod or the Emperor, involves not merely the loss of his
sacerdotal functions, but completely annuls the priestly character. The
widowed priest returns to a lay condition from that moment; he may
become a field labourer, or a valet; a quay porter, or a groom; a
mechanic, or a soldier of the army of Caucasus; but his functions at the
altar cease then, and for ever. The irregularities which in Russia, as
elsewhere, prevailed in the monastic establishments, afforded a pretext
to that rude reformer, Peter the Great, for abolishing the greater
number of them. Their immense wealth, the gifts of the piety or the
superstition of past ages, was a temptation which the inexorable despot
could not resist; and having once acquired a taste for plunder, he
appropriated not only monastic property, whilst abolishing monasteries,
but filled the imperial treasury with the confiscated wealth of the
secular clergy. What Peter left undone Catherine II. completed. During
the reign of that Princess, whose own frailties might have taught her
sympathy for human weaknesses, the whole of the remaining immovable
property of the Church was seized. The correspondent and friend of
Voltaire and the Encyclopedists filled with joy the hearts of the
philosophers of Paris, by the appropriation of the resources of
superstition, which she devoted to the realisation of her ambitious
projects, or to recompense richly the services of her numerous
favourites. Miserable pittances were allotted to the functionaries to
whom that great wealth had belonged; but the distractions of love and
war too often interfered with the payment of even those pittances. In
Moscow, St Petersburg, and some other large cities, there are still,
perhaps, a few benefices which afford a decent subsistence to the
holders; but the stipends, even when augmented by the _casuel_, the
chance and voluntary contribution paid by individuals for special
masses, and certain small perquisites for funerals, &c., are
insufficient to maintain, in anything approaching to comfort, a single,
much less a married clergyman. There appears to be some difference of
opinion among the best authorities on the exact stipends received by the
higher clergy. The income of the senior metropolitan, the first
dignitary of the orthodox church, including all sources of revenue, has
never been estimated at more than from £600 to £700 per annum; that of
the other metropolitans, at about £160; of an archbishop, £120; of a
bishop, £80; of an archimandrite, the next in rank after a bishop, from
£40 to £50. The wooden hut inhabited by a parish priest is not superior
to that of the poorest of his parishioners, and the spot of land
attached is cultivated by his own hands. The destitute condition of the
inferior clergy has many times been brought under the notice of the
government, and commissioners have been named to examine into the
complaints, but without producing any result.
Under such circumstances, it is not extraordinary that the clergy should
become degraded in the eyes of the people, and be regarded, when not in
the performance of their sacred functions, as objects of derision and
contempt. With starvation at home, they are forced to seek in the houses
of others what their own cannot supply; to satisfy the most pressing
wants of nature, they submit to scoff and insult; and wherever feasting
is going on, the priest is found an unbidden, and in most instances an
unwelcome guest. This state of life leads to vagrant, idle, and
dissolute habits, and it is declared, on what appears to be competent
authority, that intemperance is the general characteristic of the lower
clergy of Russia. Intemperance easily leads to other vices. According to
official reports laid before the Synod, there were, in the single year
1836, 208 ecclesiastics degraded for _infamous crimes_, and 1985 for
crimes or offences less grave. In that year the clergy comprised 102,456
members;—the number degraded and sentenced by the tribunals was
therefore about two per cent. In 1839, the number of priests condemned
by the tribunal was one out of twenty; and during the three years from
1836 to 1839 inclusive, the cases were 15,443, or one-sixth of the
whole. A good deal of scandal, as well there might be, was occasioned by
the reports of the Synod, and that body received a hint to be more
discreet in exposing to the sneers of the heterodox the state of the
orthodox church. It attempted, in a subsequent report, to explain away
or palliate those disorders. “If such things,” says the Synodical Report
of 1837, “cannot be entirely avoided by reason of the vast extent of the
empire; of the want of seminaries, attendance at which has been only
recently obligatory; of the little instruction received by the clergy,
who in this respect are, as it were, in a state of infancy—so much so,
that one old barbarism has not yet disappeared—nevertheless, the same
clergy has exhibited rich examples of ancient piety and severity of
morals.” Dr Pinkerton assures us that there are to be found among the
families of the parochial clergy, a degree of culture and good manners
peculiar to themselves. If we can rely on accounts more recent, and
quite as good, these are but rare exceptions; and we fear that matters
are pretty much the same as when Coxe was in Russia, and many of the
parish priests were so ignorant as to be unable to read, even in their
own language, the gospel they were commissioned to preach. M. de
Haxthausen, whose testimony is entitled to great respect, says,
“Ecclesiastics of merit are rare in the country. The greater number of
the old popes are ignorant, brutal, without any instruction, and
exclusively given up to their personal interests. In the performance of
religious ceremonies, and in the dispensation of the sacraments, they
have often no other object in view than to obtain presents. They have no
care about the spiritual welfare of their flocks, and impart neither
consolation nor instruction to them.” This ignorance, added to relaxed
morals, accounts for their want of influence with the people, who are in
the habit of treating them with the most contemptuous familiarity. The
lower classes have special sarcasms and insulting proverbs applicable to
their popes.
The higher ranks of the Russian clergy are principally, we believe
exclusively, taken from the _Tschernoi Duhovenstvo_, or black
clergy—monks who live in convents, and pass their lives in the practice
of religious observances. Their superiority to the secular clergy is in
all respects considerable, and whatever of instruction exists among the
priesthood must be sought for in the retreats of the Basilians—the only
order of monks, we believe, in Russia. They live, however, apart from
the people; they have no direct intercourse with them; they are
ignorant, or regardless, of their material or moral wants; and for them
they feel no sympathy or affection. It must not be supposed that this
superiority over the parochial or secular clergy, in station or morals,
implies independence, separately or collectively. Their dependence on
the government differs not in the least from that of the most ignorant
village pope, or of the meanest serf. The high functionaries and
dignitaries of the Church are, as we have already observed, taken from
the monastic body; and as the Synod, or, which is all the same, the
Emperor, can deprive an ecclesiastic of his functions, and degrade him
to a lay condition, the metropolitan archbishop, or bishop, who cares to
keep his mitre, has no other choice than to be the docile and zealous
agent of the Autocrat. Since the time of Peter the Great, the whole body
of the Russian clergy, from the highest to the lowest, have lain
grovelling in the dust at the feet of every tyrant with the title of
Czar or Czarina; and no other corporation in the world that we have any
knowledge of, lay or clerical, equals it in hopeless servitude. Taught
from their infancy to regard the Czar as the sole dispenser of good and
evil, and firmly believing that every people on the earth trembles at
his name, they scarcely make any distinction between him and the Deity;
and in their public and private devotions their adoration is divided,
perhaps not equally, between God and the Emperor. Those names are
mingled together in the first lessons they learn, and their awe of the
mortal ruler is more intense than their love for the Creator. Those
ideas are transmitted by the priests to their children; and as the ranks
of the clerical body are filled up almost exclusively from the families
of the popes, ignorance and slavishness become as traditional and as
hereditary as the office for which they are indispensable. The jealous
fears of the Autocrat prevent grafting on the old stock, and he suffers
no innovation of any kind to animate that torpid mass of bondage.
In alluding to the social degradation of the Russian clergy, it is but
fair to admit that there are certain privileges attached to that body
which are not accorded to the rest of his Imperial Majesty’s subjects.
The Czar, out of his mere motion, and by special favour, the value of
which is no doubt properly appreciated by the persons interested, has
made a difference in the punishments inflicted on laymen and on
clergymen. The Russian priest is not liable to be scourged to death by
the _knout_; nor to be beaten to a jelly by a club, like the other
members of the orthodox faith. Yet this privilege, we fear, is more
specious than real. It does not survive the sacerdotal character; and as
this may be suspended or annihilated at the pleasure of the Synod, or at
the death of the _popess_, the exemption from the _knout_ and the
_baten_ is an extremely uncertain privilege. The rule of the Russian
Church, which makes the priestly character, indelible in other
communions, to depend on so frail a tenure as the life of the partner,
is most curious, and must perpetuate those vices which we have already
noticed. The pastor who loses his wife must at once abandon his sacred
functions, and set himself to some other pursuit, if he be still in the
force of health and manhood; if he be aged or infirm, his lot is hard
indeed. When the sacerdotal office is forfeited by some very grave
offence, hard labour for life, or the distractions of a campaign in the
Caucasus in one of the condemned regiments, with glimpses of the
_knout_, form the hopeless future of the unhappy wretch who, but a few
months before, was dispensing the sacraments at the altar. We may add,
that the wives and widows of the priests, and their young children,
enjoy, by a pious dispensation of the head of the Church of Russia, an
exemption from the _knout_. The children, moreover, are exempt from the
payment of imposts and military enlistment.
The sects that have started into life since the seventeenth century are
comprised by the established or official church of Russia in the
sweeping designation of _roskolnicki_, or _schismatical_; but the term
is rejected with indignation by the parties to whom it is applied. They
refuse, as a base and groundless calumny, the term _schismatical_, and
claim for their own special qualification that of _Starowertzi_, or
_Ancient believers_. They have also, no less than their predecessors,
been the object of the severity of the government. Every opportunity has
been laid hold of to crush them; and in the revolt of the Strelitz, not
only were ruinous fines imposed on them, but many of their leaders were
imprisoned, exiled, hanged, or poniarded, by order of Peter I. Severity
being of no avail, milder measures were resorted to. A compromise was
proposed in the reign of Catherine II., and after a show of examination,
several of their less objectionable doctrines were allowed to pass
muster as orthodox, and the variations in their liturgy received, on
condition that their priests submitted to receive orders from the
prelates of the Synod. As an additional inducement, they were promised
that ordination should be conferred according to the sectarian, and not
the established rite; that their usages should be respected, and no
interference take place in the education of their clergy. But so great
was the animosity that no concession could win, no kindness soften them,
and the experiment of gaining over this stray flock to the fold failed
totally. At an earlier period _Starowertzi_ convents were erected in the
deep recesses of the forests in the northern provinces of Russia. These
convents were soon demolished, and their prelates and abbots banished,
or otherwise removed. Yet for many years their religious necessities
were supplied by priests ordained by the _Starowertzi_ bishops; and,
since their death, pastors are recruited from the many seceders from the
orthodox church. In spite of the difficulties the sect has to contend
with, and the incessant vigilance and rigour of the authorities, it
possesses a mysterious influence, which is said to be felt even in the
councils of the empire. It is believed that no important reform is ever
attempted, no change in the internal administration of the country takes
effect, until the opinions of the chiefs of this formidable party are
ascertained, and the impression likely to be made upon the mass of their
followers. In all social relations, in all matters connected with
everyday life and business, it is affirmed that the _Starowertzi_ are
trustworthy and honourable. They are not habitually mendacious or
deceitful, like the more civilised classes of his Imperial Majesty’s
subjects; and the more closely the lower orders resemble the
_Starowertzi_ the better they are. In education they are also superior
to the mass of the Russians. Among them there are few who have not
learned to read and write, though even in the acquisition of this
elementary instruction their religious prejudices prevail. They make use
only of the Sclavonic dialect, the modern Russian being regarded as
heretical. They are familiar with the Bible, and commit some portions of
it to memory, which they recite with what the French would term
_onction_; neither are they despicable opponents to encounter on the
field of theological controversy. One of the principal seats of
_Starowertzism_ was in the midst of those vast and dismal swamps which
extend towards the Frozen Ocean, on the European side of the great Oural
chain, and on the banks of the river which discharges its waters into
the Caspian; in the government of Saratoff, more than four hundred miles
to the south-east of Moscow; and among the Cossack tribes that wander
near the Volga and the Terek, close to the military line which extends
in front of the Caucasus, are to be found numerous disciples. But for
many years the great centre of _Starowertzism_ was on the Irghis. On its
banks four great monasteries once rose, and their inmates found a
never-failing supply from the deserters of the army, and the fugitives
from the wilderness and the knout of Siberia. Priests of the official
church, excited by fanaticism or degraded for their vices, and monks
expelled from their convents, were received with open arms as welcome
converts. Their numbers increased so rapidly as to give serious alarm to
the governors, and in 1838 a _razzia_ was proclaimed against these
religious fortresses. Strong bodies of troops were sent against them;
the convents were pillaged, and then given to the flames, and the
inmates were either sent to the army, or driven into the impenetrable
wilds of Siberia. The doctrines of the sect have chiefly spread in the
rural districts, and among the lower classes of tradesmen. In the
convents for females (for _Starowertzism_ has also its nuns), the only
occupation consists in multiplying copies of their liturgy, for no
religious work is allowed to be printed. The _Starowertzi_ divide the
inhabitants of the earth into three great classes—the _Slaves_, by them
termed _Slovaise_, or _Speakers_; the _Nemtzi_, or _Mutes_, whom they
regard as little above heathens; and all the Orientals are, without
distinction, called by the general designation of Mussulmans. The rite
of baptism is performed by immersion—they admit the validity of no
other; but in no case do they recognise it when administered by the
orthodox Russian, and all converts must be rebaptised before admission.
It is a curious fact, almost incredible, were we not assured of its
exactness on good authority, that though their spiritual directors
belong mostly to the scum of the Russian clergy—degraded priests or
monks—the _Starowertzi_ are the least immoral of all the sects into
which the orthodox church has been broken up.
The sect which more closely approximates in fundamentals to the
established church is that which terms itself the _Blagosslowenni_ (the
_Blessed_); and so slight is the difference between them, that in the
official nomenclature they are designated as the _Jedinowertzi_, or the
_Uniform Believers_. In essential points of doctrine the difference is
not great, in some almost imperceptible, though the ceremonial varies
notably from that which is recognised by the Holy Synod. They make the
sign of the cross in a different manner from the orthodox. They denounce
the shaving the beard as a sin of the greatest enormity. Some other
peculiarities are worth noting: they repeat the name of Jesus in three
distinct parts; walk in procession in their places of worship from right
to left, and, taking their ground on the text of Scripture which says
that that which enters at the mouth is not sinful, but that which issues
from it, they denounce the practice of smoking as a crime. There is
another point, which we fear would be unpopular among our
fellow-subjects in Ireland: the _Blessed_ attribute a diabolical origin
to that useful root the potato, and, what we believe has been
strenuously maintained, though in a different spirit, by some Irish
antiquarian, they pretend to prove that the potato was actually the
fruit with which Eve was easily seduced by the wily serpent, and which
our first mother persuaded her confiding husband to partake of. This
sect reprobates the reforms attempted by Peter I., and they are not to
this day reconciled to the Emperor Nicholas for not wearing the costume,
and bearing the title of the _Belvi Tzar_, or the _White Czar_.
The _Starrobriadtzi_, or the _Observers of the ancient rite_, are an
offshoot of the _Starowertzi_, but are still more exclusive and
intolerant, and much more hostile to the official church. The scum of
the orthodox priesthood are sure to find a welcome with them, and the
more degraded they are the better. Every candidate for admission must
formally recant his previous heresy—for such they term the orthodox
dogma.
The most numerous of all these sects is one which is termed the
_Bespopertchine_ (_Without priests_). They not only reject ordination as
conferred by the orthodox bishop, but dispense altogether with clergy as
a distinct body. The sect is subdivided into several fractions, each
known by the name of its founder, such as the _Philipperes_, the
_Theodosians_, the _Abakounians_, &c., &c. They anticipate a general
conversion of the reprobates,—that is, all who are not of their sect,
whether Christian or Infidel—by reason or by force; and believe that the
time is at hand when the errors of Nicon, the Luther of the Russo-Greek
church, will be solemnly abjured by Russia; that a regenerated order of
ecclesiastical superintendents will come from the East, when their own
sect, the only true church of God, will reign triumphant wherever the
name of Russia is heard. The reign of Antichrist began with Nicon; it
still subsists, and will endure until the advent of the Lord, who is to
smite the unbelievers, and scatter the darkness that envelopes the
earth. Though a regularly ordained priesthood is not recognised, yet a
sort of religious organisation is admitted by the Philippon section of
it. Instead of the popes of the orthodox church, they have a class of
men whom they term _Stariki_, or _Elders_, and who are selected from a
number of candidates. The ceremony of installation consists in a few
words of prayer, and the _accolade_ in the presence of the congregation.
The elders, who are distinguished by a particular costume, have no
regular stipend, but subsist entirely on alms. In case of misconduct,
they are not only deprived of their office, but expelled altogether from
the community. The Philippons retain the rite of confession; but the
avowal of their sins is made, not to a living man, but to an image,
which acts by way of conductor to the pardon which is sent down from
heaven. An elder, however, stands by as a witness of the confession and
forgiveness; and while the long story of offences, mortal or venial, is
unfolded, his duty consists in crying out at regular intervals, “May
your sins be forgiven!” The simple exclamation, in the presence of three
witnesses, that a man takes a woman to wife, is the only ceremony
required for marriage, nor is it indispensable that the elder should be
present. The portion of the Bible translated by Saint Cyril is the only
part of it they retain. Their doctrine of the procession of the Holy
Ghost is the same as that of the Greek Church. They believe that the
souls of the dead are sunk in a profound lethargy from the moment they
quit the body until the general judgment, to which they will be summoned
by the archangel’s trumpet. On that awful day the souls of the wicked
only are to resume their bodies, and pass into eternal fire. Their
fasts, which comprise a third of the year, are of the strictest. They
rigorously abstain from malt liquors; and though, on certain specified
occasions, wine is permitted, yet the moderate draught must be
administered from the hand of one of their own sect. In the matter of
oaths they are quite as rigid as the Society of Friends. They are
distinguished by no family name, but only by that received at their
birth. Their differences are all settled before a tribunal composed of
an elder and two or three of the sect, who must, however, be fathers of
families; and from this decision there is seldom an appeal. Between
husband and wife a complete community of goods exists, and the surviving
partner inherits all.
The Theodosians do not much differ from the Philippons. Their women,
however, have a separate place of worship from the men, where the
service is celebrated by ancient maidens, called _Christova Neviestu_,
or the _Betrothed of Christ_. The Theodosians have a large hospital in
the city of Moscow, with two magnificent churches. The former affords
accommodation for more than a thousand patients. Communism has
penetrated into all these sects. Among the subdivisions of the great
sect of the _Starowertzi_ marriage is not regarded as a bond which lasts
for life, or which can only be severed by divorce. A man and woman agree
to live together for one or more years, as it may suit their
convenience. They separate on the expiry of their contract, and become
free to receive a similar offer from any one else, while the issue of
such temporary marriages belongs to the public, without any special
notice from the parents.
The _Douchobertzi_, or _Wrestlers in Spirit_, are, like the _Malakani_,
or _Drinkers of Milk_, divided into seven fractions, and are remarkable
for their hostility to the official church. Their doctrines consist of
the leading points of the old heresies, and they constitute a
theological system more developed, though not more uniform, than any of
the previous sects. Some of their doctrines are so vague, and so
inconsistent, that what is regarded as fundamental in one district, or
even in one village, is considered as corrupt or as unimportant in
another not perhaps a league off. Different from the _Starowertzi_, who
strictly adhere to traditional observances, they are incessantly making
innovations in the fundamental doctrines of the orthodox church. The
_Starowertzi_ are particularly scrupulous about form and ceremonial; the
_Douchobertzi_, on the contrary, reject all forms of worship, and
spiritualise the church. The influence of these spiritualists is not yet
felt to any considerable extent in Russia. Though offshoots of the
_Malakani_, or _Milk Drinkers_, these two sects hate each other most
cordially.
The use of milk preparations during Lent, and on days of rigid
abstinence, explains the name by which the _Malakani_ are known to their
adversaries, but the designation by which they describe themselves is
_Istinie Christiane_, or _True Christians_. They are of modern date, and
first became known in the middle of the last century, when they appeared
in the government of Tambon. They soon spread into neighbouring
governments, and their most successful proselytism has been among the
peasantry. Three large villages in the Taurida are entirely peopled by
this sect. Like the Latin Church, they admit seven sacraments, but they
receive them only in spirit. As with them the “church” is merely a
_spiritual_ assemblage of believers, they have no temples for the
celebration of divine worship. Images they do not tolerate, and swearing
on any account, or in any form, is severely interdicted. One of their
leading doctrines is, that with them alone Jesus Christ will reign on
the earth. A precursor of that spiritual millennium, who assumed to be
the prophet Elias, appeared in 1833. He exhorted the _Malakani_ to
prepare, by rigid fasting and mortification, for the advent of the
Saviour, which would take place in two years. A brother fanatic or
accomplice, under the biblical appellation of Enoch, went on a similar
mission, to announce the tidings to the barbarians of western Europe.
When the duty of the original impostor, whose real name was Beloireor,
was accomplished, he announced his approaching return to heaven in a
chariot. Thousands of the _Malakani_ assembled to witness the ascent of
the prophet, who presented himself to the kneeling multitude clothed in
flowing robes of white and blue, and seated in a car drawn by white
steeds. The new Elias rose, spread out his arms, and waved them up and
down, as a bird his wings when preparing to mount into the sky. He
bounded from his chariot, but instead of soaring gracefully to the
clouds, fell heavily and awkwardly in the mire, and killed a woman who
stood by clinging to the wheels. The multitude had fasted, prayed, wept,
and watched, and their imaginations had become excited to the highest
pitch. Enraged at the disappointment, or convinced of the imposture of
the prophet, they rose against him, and would have slain him, had he not
contrived to escape the first burst of their fury. He was afterwards
caught, and, with more judgment than could be expected from them, they
contented themselves with handing him over to the tribunals to pay the
penalties of imposture. He endured a long imprisonment; but neither his
disgrace nor the fear of the knout prevented him from predicting to the
last day of his existence the near advent of the millennium. His
persistence conciliated former, and obtained him new disciples. They
became more numerous after his death; but the scene of their labours was
changed; they were forced to emigrate to Georgia, where they still carry
on their propagandism.
It is a curious fact that, when Napoleon invaded Russia, the great
captain was regarded by the _Malakani_ as “the Lion of the Valley of
Josaphat,” whose mission was to overthrow the “false emperor,” and
restore to power the “White Czar.” A numerous deputation from the
government of Tambon, preceded by heralds clothed in white, was sent
forth to meet him. Their privilege did not protect them. Napoleon, or
his marshals, had no great sympathy with fanatics; they were considered
as prisoners of war: one only escaped, the others were never heard of
again.
The _Douchobertzi_ are the _illuminati_ of Russia, and the term applied
to them by the common people is _Yarmacon_, or Free Masons. Though this
sect really dates from the middle of the eighteenth century, it affects
to trace its origin to a very remote period, claiming as its founders
the youths who were flung into the furnace by order of Nebuchadnezzar.
The corruption and fall of the soul of man, long previous to the
creation of the material world, forms the basis of their faith. The “Son
of God” means the universal spirit of humanity; and the assumption of
the form of man was in order that each individual member of mankind
might also possess the attributes of the Son of God. The _Douchobertzi_
admit that in the person of Christ the world has been saved; but the
Christ whose death is recorded in Holy Writ was not the real Redeemer;
it was not He who made atonement for man; that belongs only to the
_ideal_ Christ. Forms of worship, and, of course, temples, are rejected
by them. Each member of the sect is himself a temple, where the
“Eternal” loves to be glorified, and man is at once temple, priest, and
victim; or, in other words, the heart is the altar, the will the
offering, and the spirit of man the pontiff. They are all equal in the
sight of God, and they admit the supremacy of no creature on the earth.
The more rigorous of the _Douchobertzi_ carry their severity of morals
to an extreme, and with them the most innocent and most necessary
recreations are heinous crimes. But the majority pass to the other
extreme, and strange stories are told of the orgies practised in secret
under the guise of devotional exercises. The _Douchobertzi_, like other
fanatics, expect the triumph of their own sect over the world. Even now
the fulness of time is nigh at hand; and when the awful moment comes,
they will rise in their accumulated and resistless force, and spread
terror over the earth. _Their_ chief will be the only potentate who
shall reign in unbounded power, and all mankind will gather round the
footsteps of his throne, bow their heads to the dust, veil their eyes
before the glory that flashes fiercely from his brow, and proclaim his
boundless power and his reign without end. But this triumph must be
preceded by a season of trial and sorrow. Their Czar must previously
undertake a mighty struggle against all misbelievers. It will be
terrible, but brief; the _Douchobertzi_ shall, of course, win the
victory, and, in the person of their chief, mount the throne of the
world to reign for ever and for ever! The Russian authorities have
repeatedly attempted to crush a sect whose tendencies are so menacing;
but the task is difficult against a body who have no acknowledged
leader, no priesthood, and no place of worship. Among the few puritans
who take no pains to conceal their doctrines, they have to a certain
extent succeeded. One of the most eminent of them was a man named
Kaponstin, who was reverenced as a divinity. In consequence of some
dissensions with the _Malakani_, to whom he originally belonged, he
separated from them, preached new and still more extravagant doctrines.
Numerous proselytes quitted with him their old villages, and took up
their abode in the Taurida. There they founded nine villages, which a
few years ago contained a population of nine thousand souls, professing
the more rigid doctrines of the _Douchobertzi_. Kaponstin had been a
sub-officer in the imperial guard, was of studious habits, and of the
most scrupulous exactness in the performance of his military duties. His
fanaticism came on him all of a sudden. One day, in the guardroom, he
stood up among the soldiers, whom he had previously won over to his
doctrine, and summoned them to fall down on the ground and adore him, as
he was the _Christ_—a command which most of them instantly obeyed.
Kaponstin was degraded from his rank, and committed to prison; but on
its being found that he was totally unfitted for a military life, he was
released, and he at once resumed his preachings. Kaponstin taught that
the Divine soul of Christ had, from the beginning of the world, dwelt in
a succession of men, who alone were, each in turn, the true heads of the
church. As mankind degenerated, and became unworthy of the sacred
deposit, false popes usurped the dignity and attributes of the Son of
God. The _Douchobertzi_ were now the sole and true guardians of the
treasure which especially dwelt in him as the incarnation of the sect.
His followers believed him at his word, and fell down and worshipped
him. Kaponstin again attracted the attention of the authorities, and was
again thrown into prison. A large sum of money, the produce of the
contributions of hundreds of thousands, was offered as a bribe to the
gaoler—and when did a Russian functionary refuse a bribe? He regained
his liberty, fled to the forests, was once more hunted down, but baffled
the vengeance of his pursuers. He shut himself up in a cavern in the
remote districts of the Taurida, and under the vigilant eye of his
followers, by none of whom his secret was revealed, passed there the
remaining years of his life, preaching, believed, and adored. His
retreat the police did not or would not discover; when he died is known
only to a few. The mantle of Kaponstin was assumed by his son, who
proved himself unworthy of wearing it. At the age of fifteen he was
received by his father’s disciples as his true successor, and the Christ
of the _Douchobertzi_. At his installation the grand council of the sect
assembled, and the first resolution adopted was that ten concubines
should be allotted to their youthful prophet, Hilarion Kaponstin. He did
not merit the reverence paid him, nor did he inherit a particle of the
intellect or the courage of his father. From the day of his installation
he gave himself up to the most debasing sensuality. The father had
instituted a council, composed of forty members, twelve of whom
represented the apostles. This council took advantage of the incapacity
of its boy-prophet, and from being merely a legislative, assumed the
functions of an executive power, which it exercised most tyrannically.
It soon became the scourge of the community. As the members of the
council were only divine by reflection, it was no crime to shake off its
usurped authority, and the sect rose in rebellion. The tyrants were
seized, tried in secret conclave, and sentence of death pronounced
against them, for usurpation and cruelty. A lonely isle near the mouth
of the Malotschua was selected for the execution, and there they
suffered the last penalty. There, also, during the two years which
followed that event, more than five hundred members of the sect were put
to death, suspected of having revealed the secrets of its orgies. They
were drowned in the stream, or perished by the halter or the knife; at
all events, they disappeared, and were never more heard of. These
doings, even in that remote district, could not long be kept secret. The
police bestirred themselves; the isle where so many deeds of murder had
taken place was visited, and closely searched; and numerous bodies that
had apparently been buried alive, carcasses strangled or hacked to
pieces, and mutilated limbs, were found in abundance. Some years were
spent in the inquiry, and the issue was, that at the close of 1839 the
government ordered the complete expulsion of the _Douchobertzi_ of the
Malotschua. Many withered and perished amid the snows of the Caucasus.
Their nominal chief, Hilarion Kaponstin, died in 1841, at Achaltisk, in
Georgia, leaving behind him two infants, in whom the _Douchobertzi_
still hope to see their Christ revived.
Those we have sketched are but a few specimens of the long catalogue of
sects who disavow the dogmas of the Church of St Petersburg, and
denounce its Holy Synod. There are others that work in obscurity, but
with perseverance, and gradually, but steadily, sap its foundations.
Most of those doctrines lead to the complete disruption of all moral
bonds, and the dissolution of society; and sensuality, plunder, and
cruelty seem to pervade the gloomy reveries in which the Russian peasant
indulges. We have reason to believe that the stirring of that dangerous
spirit which aims at the overthrow of all authority, has given serious
uneasiness to the Russian government; and that the conspiracies which
have more than once been found to exist in the army, are traceable to
that dark and stern fanaticism! Education, of course, is the remedy for
the evil. In Russia, however, the maxim of Bacon is reversed, and there
_ignorance_, not _knowledge_, is believed to be power. If education once
teach the Russian serf to regard the Czar as less than the Deity, how
long would that despotism endure?
Such, then, is the “orthodoxy” which the Czar would extend over southern
Europe, whose doctrines and whose unity he would impose on Greece; and
such the religious protectorate with which the Greek Christians, the
subjects of the Porte, are menaced. Those pretensions have no
foundation, no justification, in civil or religious law; they are not
based on the laws of any civilised community. The orthodox Church of
Russia is but the erring offspring of the Church of Constantinople; and
she is branded on the forehead by that Church with schism. It was from
the Church of Constantinople that, down to the fifteenth century, she
received her patriarchs, who never advanced pretensions to equality with
the Byzantine pontiffs. What they might have attained to, it is now
useless to inquire, for the link which bound that Church to her parent
was, as we have shown, severed for ever by Peter the Great. By the same
right as the Czar, the sovereign of France might claim a protectorate
over the Catholics of Belgium or Northern Germany; or call upon the
Autocrat himself to render an account of the Poles, or others of his
Catholic subjects. Russia has no claim to eminence in piety, in
learning, in antiquity, in superior morality, or in extent of privilege.
Her Church has been for years forced to maintain a separate struggle
against sects more or less hostile to her Synod, and to her temporal
authority. Each prelate, each dignitary of her establishment, is, with
respect to the Czar, precisely what the meanest serf is to his lord, and
the mass of her priests are sunk in ignorance. The question of the Holy
Shrines is invariably the mask assumed by Russia to cover her designs in
the East. The right on which the nations of the West claim to protect
the Cross from the Infidel dates from the Crusades. Among the hosts
which the enthusiasm and eloquence of the Hermit sent forth to do battle
with the Mussulman, and to liberate from the cruel yoke of the
misbelievers the land which witnessed the mystery of the Redemption, the
name of Russia is not to be found. These barbarians had then their necks
bowed under the rule of the Tartars; they were then crowding to the
tents of the Khans, kissing the hoofs of their masters’ horses, or
presenting, as slaves, the draught of mares’ milk, too happy if
permitted to lick from the dust the drops that fell from the bowl.
Perhaps we ought to offer an apology for the length of this paper. But
we were desirous of showing, _first_, that the homogeneity of the
Russian and Eastern Churches, on which the Czar lays his strongest claim
to the protectorate he demands, has no foundation in fact, and that the
Christian communities on which he would impose his protection deny the
orthodoxy of his faith, and regard him as the usurper of spiritual
power; _second_, that the doctrines of the Synod of St Petersburg are
denounced by Russians themselves, and the establishment opposed by a
formidable sectarianism, and that that Church is itself rather in a
condition to require protection against its internal enemies than to
afford it to others; _third_, that even supposing the Russian and
Eastern Churches to be identical, the protectorate in question would, in
consequence of the temporal privileges preserved by the Patriarch of
Constantinople, as already noticed, be the positive introduction of a
dangerous foreign influence in the domestic administration of the
Ottoman empire, and that the Sultan would thereby become the vassal of
the Czar; _fourth_, that as there are numerous Christian subjects of the
Sublime Porte who do not belong to the Greek communion, their protector,
where protection is needed, cannot be the Czar; and, _fifth_, that the
semi-independent Moldo-Wallachians also disavow the doctrines of the
Russian Church, and reject her protection.
We do not pretend to speak with enthusiasm of the Ottomans, but it must
be admitted, that what has occurred since the commencement of the
present quarrel is not to their disadvantage. Unlike the Czar, the
Sultan has made no appeal to the mere fanaticism of his people, nor has
he attempted to arouse the fierceness of religious hatred against the
_Giaour_, which he might have done. His appeal has been to their feeling
of nationality—such an appeal as every government would make in similar
circumstances. Nor are the events which have taken place on the Danube
likely to inspire the world with contempt for Ottoman valour and
patriotism. If left alone to struggle with their powerful adversary, the
Turks must succumb; but in the present campaign they have, at all
events, proved themselves to be good soldiers.
The momentous question of a general war is, at the moment we write these
lines, trembling in the balance; and the decision is with Austria. But
whatever be the phase into which the great Eastern question is about to
enter, we have one decided opinion on the policy of Russia. It is thus
explained, not by a hostile or a foreign writer, but by a Russian
historian, the eloquent Karamsin, in the following brief sentences: “The
object and the character of our military policy has invariably been, to
seek to be at peace with everybody, and _to make conquests without war_;
always keeping ourselves on the defensive, placing no faith in the
friendship of those whose interests do not accord with our own, and
losing no opportunity of injuring them, without _ostensibly_ breaking
our treaties with them.”
THE TWO ARNOLDS.[3]
Nature, it would seem, has fortunately provided against the simultaneous
development of kindred genius and intellect amongst human families.
Such, at least, is the general rule, and it is a beneficent one. For if
a sudden frenzy were to seize the whole clans of Brown, or Smith, or
Campbell, or Thomson—were the divine afflatus breathed at once upon the
host, more numerous than that of Sennacherib, of the inheritors of the
above names, undoubtedly such a confusion would ensue as has not been
witnessed since the day of the downfall of Babel. Passing over three of
these great divisions of the human race, as located in the British
Islands, let us confine our illustration simply to the sons of Diarmid.
Without estimating the number of Campbells who are scattered over the
face of the earth, we have reason to believe that in Argyllshire alone
there are fifty thousand of that name. Out of each fifty, at least
twenty are Colins. If, then, a poetical epidemic, only half as
contagious as the measles, were to visit our western county, we should
behold the spectacle of a thousand Colin Campbells rushing frantically,
and with a far cry towards Lochow, and simultaneously twangling on the
clairshach. Fame, in the form of a Druidess, might announce, from the
summit of Kilchurn Castle, the name of the one competitor who was
entitled to the wreath; but twice five hundred Colins would press
forward at the call, and the question of poetic superiority could only
be decided by the dirk. Fortunately, as we have already observed, nature
provides against such a contingency. Glancing over the cosmopolitan
directory, she usually takes care that no two living bards shall bear
precisely the same appellation; and if, sometimes, she seems to permit
an unusual monopoly of some kind of talent in the same family or sept,
we almost never find that the baptismal appellations correspond. Thus,
in the days of James I., there were no less than three poetical
Fletchers—John, the dramatist; Phineas, the author of the _Purple
Island_; and Giles, the brother of Phineas. Also there were two
Beaumonts—Francis, the ally of the greater Fletcher, and Sir John, his
brother. In our own time, the poetic mantle seems to have fallen
extensively on the shoulders of the Tennysons. Besides Prince Alfred,
whom we all honour and admire, and to whom more than three-fourths of
our young versifiers pay homage by slavishly imitating his style, there
was Charles, whose volume, published about the same time as the
firstling of his brother, was deemed by competent judges to exhibit
remarkable promise; and within the last few months, another
Tennyson—Frederick—has bounded like a grasshopper into the ring, and is
now piping away as clearly as any cicala. And here, side by side, amidst
the mass of minstrelsy which cumbers our table, lie two volumes, on the
title-page of each of which is inscribed the creditable name of Arnold.
We have not for a considerable time held much communing with the rising
race of poets, and we shall at once proceed to state the reason why.
Even as thousands of astronomers are nightly sweeping the heavens with
their telescopes, in the hope of discovering some new star or wandering
comet, so of late years have shoals of small critics been watching for
the advent of some grand poetical genius. These gentlemen, who could
not, if their lives depended on it, elaborate a single stanza, have a
kind of insane idea that they may win immortal fame by being the first
to perceive and hail the appearance of the coming bard. Accordingly,
scarce a week elapses without a shout being raised at the birth of a
thin octavo. “Apollodorus, or the Seraph of Gehenna, a Dramatic Mystery,
by John Tunks,” appears; and we are straightway told, on the authority
of Mr Guffaw, the celebrated critic, that:—“It is a work more colossal
in its mould than the undefined structures of the now mouldering
Persepolis. Tunks may not, like Byron, possess the hypochondriacal
brilliancy of a blasted firework, or pour forth his floods of radiant
spume with the intensity of an artificial volcano. He does not pretend
to the spontaneous combustion of our young friend Gander Rednag (who, by
the way, has omitted to send us his last volume), though we almost think
that he possesses a diviner share of the poet’s ennobling lunacy. He
does not dive so sheer as the author of _Festus_ into the bosom of far
unintelligibility, plummet-deep beyond the range of comprehension, or
the shuddering gaze of the immortals. He may not be endowed with the
naked eagle-eye of Gideon Stoupie, the bard of Kirriemuir, whose works
we last week noticed, and whose grand alcoholic enthusiasm shouts ha,
ha, to the mutchkin, as loudly as the call of the trumpet that summons
Behemoth from his lair. He may not, like the young Mactavish, to whose
rising talent we have also borne testimony, be able to swathe his real
meaning in the Titanic obscurity of the parti-coloured Ossianic
mysticism. He may not, like Shakespeare, &c. &c.” And then, having
occupied many columns in telling us whom Mr Tunks does _not_ resemble,
the gifted Guffaw concludes by an assurance that Tunks is Tunks, and
that his genius is at this moment flaring over the universe, like the
meteor-standard of the Andes!
Desirous, from the bottom of our heart, to do all proper justice to
Tunks, we lay down this furious eulogium, and turn to the volume. We
find, as we had anticipated, that poor Tunks is quite guiltless of
having written a single line of what can, by any stretch of conscience,
be denominated poetry—that the passages which Guffaw describes as being
so ineffably grand, are either sheer nonsense or exaggerated
conceits—and that a very excellent young man, who might have gained a
competency by following his paternal trade, is in imminent peril of
being rendered an idiot for life by the folly of an unscrupulous
scribbler. Would it be right, under those circumstances, to tell Tunks
our mind, and explain to him the vanity of his ways? If we were to do
so, the poor lad would probably not believe us; for he has drunk to the
dregs the poisoned chalice of Guffaw, and is ready, like another Homer,
to beg for bread and make minstrelsy through innumerable cities. If we
cannot hope to reclaim him, it would be useless cruelty to hurt his
feelings, especially as Tunks is doing no harm to any one beyond
himself. So we regard him much as one regards a butterfly towards the
close of autumn, with the wish that the season of his enjoyment might be
prolonged, but with the certainty that the long nights and frosty
evenings are drawing nigh. Little, indeed, do the tribe of the Guffaws
care for the mischief they are doing.
Or take another case. Let us suppose the appearance on the literary
stage of a young man really endowed with poetic sensibility—one whose
powers are yet little developed, but who certainly gives promise,
conditionally on proper culture, of attaining decided eminence. Before
we know anything about him, he is somehow or other committed to the
grasp of the Guffaws. They do not praise—they idolise him. All the
instances of youthful genius are dragged forth to be debased at his
feet. He is told, in as many words, that Pope was a goose, Chatterton a
charlatan, Kirke White a weakling, and Keats a driveller, compared with
him,—at any rate, that the early effusions of those poets are not fit to
be spoken of in the same breath with what he has written at a similar
age. There are no bounds to the credulity of a poet of one-and-twenty.
He accepts the laudation of those sons of Issachar as gospel, and,
consequently, is rather surprised that a louder blast has not been blown
through the trumpet of fame. His eulogists are so far from admitting
that he has any faults, that they hold him up as a pattern, thereby
exciting his vanity to such an extent that an honest exposition of his
faults would appear to him a gross and malignant outrage. It is really
very difficult to know what to do in such cases. On the one hand, it is
a pity, without an effort, to allow a likely lad to be flyblown and
spoiled by the buzzing blue-bottles of literature; on the other, it is
impossible to avoid seeing that the mischief has been so far done, that
any remedy likely to be effectual must cause serious pain. To tie up a
Guffaw to the stake, and to inflict upon him condign punishment—a
resolution which we intend to carry into effect some fine morning—would
be far less painful to us than the task or duty of wounding the
sensitiveness of a youth who may possibly be destined to be a poet.
Setting, for the present, the Guffaws, or literary Choctaws, aside, we
have a word to say to a very different class of critics, or rather
commentators; and we desire to do this in the utmost spirit of kindness.
Whether Aristotle, who could no more have perpetrated a poem than have
performed the leger-de-main of the Wizard of the North, was justified in
writing his “Poetics,” we cannot exactly say. More than one of his
treatises upon subjects with which he hardly could have been practically
conversant, are still quoted in the schools; but we suspect that his
authority—paramount, almost, during the middle ages, because there were
then no other guides, and because he found his way into Western Europe
chiefly through the medium of the Moors—is fast waning, and in matters
of taste ought not now to be implicitly received. Aristotle, however,
was a great man, far greater than Dr Johnson. The latter compiled a
Dictionary; Aristotle, by his own efforts, aspired to make, and did
make, a sort of Encyclopædia. But he composed several of his treatises,
not because he conceived that he was the person best qualified to be the
exponent of the subject, but because no one really qualified had
attempted before him to expound it. We have seen, and perused with real
sorrow, a recent treatise upon “Poetics,” which we cannot do otherwise,
conscientiously, than condemn. The author is no doubt entitled to praise
on account of his metaphysical ability, which we devoutly trust he may
be able to turn to some useful purpose; but as to poetry, its forms,
development, machinery, or application, he is really as ignorant as a
horse. It is perfectly frightful to see the calmness with which one of
these young students of metaphysics sits down to explain the principles
of poetry, and the self-satisfied air with which he enunciates the
results of his wonderful discoveries. Far be it from us, when “our young
men dream dreams,” to rouse them rudely from their slumber; but we hold
it good service to give them a friendly shake when we observe them
writhing under the pressure of Ephialtes.
It is one thing to descant upon poetry, and another to compose it. After
long meditation on the subject, we have arrived at the conclusion that
very little benefit indeed is to be derived from the perusal of
treatises, and that the only proper studies for a young poet are the
book of nature, and the works of the greatest masters. To that opinion,
we are glad to observe, one of our Arnolds seriously inclines.
Matthew—whom we shall take up first, because he is an old
acquaintance—has written an elaborate preface, in which he complains of
the bewildering tone of the criticism of the present day. He remarks
with perfect justice, that the ceaseless babbling about art has done an
incalculable deal of harm, by drawing the attention of young composers
from the study and contemplation of their subjects, and leading them to
squander their powers upon isolated passages. There is much truth in the
observations contained in the following extract, albeit it is in direct
opposition to the daily practice of the Guffaws:—
“We can hardly, at the present day, understand what Menander meant
when he told a man who inquired as to the progress of his comedy, that
he had finished it, not having yet written a single line, because he
had constructed the action of it in his mind. A modern critic would
have assured him that the merit of his piece depended on the brilliant
things which arose under his pen as he went along. We have poems which
seem to exist merely for the sake of single lines and passages; not
for the sake of producing any total impression. We have critics who
seem to direct their attention merely to detached expressions,—to the
language about the action, not to the action itself. I verily think
that the majority of them do not in their hearts believe that there is
such a thing as a total-impression to be derived from a poem at all,
or to be demanded from a poet; they think the term a commonplace of
metaphysical criticism. They will permit the poet to select any action
he pleases, and to suffer that action to go as it will, provided he
gratifies them with occasional bursts of fine writing, and with a
shower of isolated thoughts and images. That is, they permit him to
leave their poetical sense ungratified, provided that he gratifies
their rhetorical sense and their curiosity. Of his neglecting to
gratify these there is little danger; he needs rather to be warned
against the danger of attempting to gratify these alone; he needs
rather to be perpetually reminded to prefer his action to everything
else; so to treat this, as to permit its inherent excellencies to
develop themselves, without interruption from the intrusion of his
personal peculiarities—most fortunate when he most entirely succeeds
in effacing himself, and in enabling a noble action to subsist as it
did in nature.”
It would be well for the literature of the age if sound criticism of
this description were more common. Mr Arnold is undoubtedly correct in
holding that the first duty of the poet, after selecting his subject, is
to take pains to fashion it symmetrically, and that any kind of ornament
which tends to divert the attention from the subject is positively
injurious to the poem. This view, however, is a great deal too refined
for the comprehension of the Guffaws. They show you a hideous misshapen
image, with diamonds for eyes, rubies stuck into the nostrils, and
pearls inserted in place of teeth, and ask you to admire it! Admire
what? Not the image certainly, for anything more clumsy and absurd it is
impossible to imagine: if it is meant that we are to admire the jewels,
we are ready to do so, as soon as they are properly disposed, and made
the ornaments of a stately figure. The necklace which would beseem the
bosom of Juno, and send lustre even to the queen of the immortals,
cannot give anything but additional hideousness to the wrinkled folds of
an Erichtho. Mr Arnold, who has inherited his father’s admiration for
ancient literature, makes out the best case we remember to have seen, in
vindication of the Greek drama. It is as follows:—
“For what reason was the Greek tragic poet confined to so limited a
range of subjects? Because there are so few actions which unite in
themselves, in the highest degree, the conditions of excellence; and
it was not thought that on any but an excellent subject could an
excellent poem be constructed. A few actions, therefore, eminently
adapted for tragedy, maintained almost exclusive possession of the
Greek tragic stage; their significance appeared inexhaustible; they
were as permanent problems, perpetually offered to the genius of every
fresh poet. This too is the reason of what appears to us moderns a
certain baldness of expression in Greek tragedy; of the triviality
with which we often reproach the remarks of the chorus, where it takes
place in the dialogue; that the action itself, the situation of
Orestes, or Merope, or Alcmæon, was to stand the central point of
interest, unforgotten, absorbing, principal; that no accessories were
for a moment to distract the spectator’s attention from this; that the
tone of the parts was to be perpetually kept down, in order not to
impair the grandiose effect of the whole. The terrible old mythic
story on which the drama was founded, stood, before he entered the
theatre, traced in its bare outlines upon the spectator’s mind; it
stood in his memory as a group of statuary, faintly seen, at the end
of a long and dark vista: then came the Poet, embodying outlines,
developing situations, not a word wasted, not a sentiment capriciously
thrown in: stroke upon stroke the drama proceeded; the light deepened
upon the group; more and more it revealed itself to the rivetted gaze
of the spectator; until at last, when the final words were spoken, it
stood before him in broad sunlight, a model of immortal beauty.”
This is indeed criticism worth listening to, and the style of it is not
less admirable than the matter. We do not, however, entirely go along
with Mr Arnold in his decided preference for the antique drama. We never
arise from the study of Greek tragedy without the impression that it is
deficient in richness and flexibility. This, we think, is to be
attributed in a great measure to its form, which is not natural; the
members of the chorus being neither altogether actors, nor altogether
disinterested spectators. They are interlopers between the audience and
the actors, and detract from the interest of the latter by requiring and
receiving explanation. That at least is our feeling after the perusal of
Greek tragedy, but it by no means follows that the same impression was
produced on the minds of a Greek audience. We agree with Professor
Blackie that the grand works of the Attic three are to be regarded
rather as operas than as tragedies, according to our modern acceptance
of the term—that they were framed purposely for musical accompaniment
and effect—and that, failing these, it is impossible for us to form an
adequate estimate of their power in exciting sympathy or awakening
emotion. “The man,” says the translator of Æschylus, “must certainly be
strangely blinded by early classical prepossessions, if he fails to feel
that, as a whole, a Greek tragedy, when set against the English
composition of the same name, is exceedingly narrow in its conception,
meagre in its furniture, monotonous in its character, unskilful in its
execution, and not seldom feeble in its effect.” Most true—and for this
reason, that the writer of English tragedy seeks no other vehicle of
thought or idea than language; so that, except for scenic display, his
play will give as much pleasure to, and produce nearly the same effect
upon the mind, if read silently in the closet, as if brought upon the
stage. It is not necessary, in order to appreciate Shakespeare, that we
should have seen his dramas represented in the pomp and magnificence of
the theatre. Whereas the Greek artist had to deal with the more complex
material of words and music. Take away the latter, and you frustrate
half his design; because he did not mean the words of the chorus to be
studied as poems—he meant them to be heard with the full accompaniment
of music. Those who are in the habit of frequenting the modern opera
will readily understand our position. What can be finer than _Norma_, as
represented on the stage, when Grisi or Caradori assumes the part of the
prophetess, imprecates vengeance on the perfidious Pollio, and implores
the forgiveness of the father? Higher tragedy than that can hardly be
conceived—the effect upon the audience of the combined music and action
is as powerful as though they had been listening to the greatest
masterpiece of Shakespeare. But take the libretto of _Norma_—divest
yourself of the musical association—study it in the closet—and we answer
for it that no exercise of imagination on your part will enable you to
endure it. And why is this? Simply because it was constructed as an
opera, and because, by withdrawing the music, you destroy more than half
the charm.