stained the glory of the conquerors, the Christians of the Holy
City crowded round Peter the Hermit, who five years before had
promised to arm the West for the deliverance of the faithful in
Jerusalem, and then enjoyed the spectacle of their liberation. They
were never wearied of gazing on the man by whom God had wrought
such prodigies. At the sight of their brethren whom they had
delivered, the pilgrims recollected that they had come to adore the
tomb of Jesus Christ. Godfrey, who had abstained from carnage after
the victory, quitted his companions, and attended only by three
followers, repaired bareheaded and with naked feet to the Church of
the Holy Sepulchre. Soon the news of that act of devotion spread
among the Christian army. Instantly the fury of the war ceased, and
the thirst for vengeance was appeased; the Crusaders threw off
their bloody garments, and marching together to the Holy Sepulchre,
with the clergy at their head, bareheaded and without shoes, they
made Jerusalem resound with their groans and sobs. Silence more
terrible even than the tumult which had preceded it, reigned in the
public places and on the ramparts. No sound was heard but the
canticles of repentance, and the words of Isaiah, 'Ye who love
Jerusalem, rejoice with me.' So sincere and fervent was the
devotion which the Crusaders manifested on this occasion, that it
seemed as if the stern warriors, who had just taken a city by
assault, and committed the most frightful slaughter, were cenobites
who had newly emerged from a long retreat and peaceful
meditations."--_Hist. des Croisades_, i. 440-446.
Inexplicable as such contradictory conduct appears to those who "sit at
home at ease," and are involved in none of the terrible calamities which
draw forth the latent marvels of the human heart, history in every age
affords too many examples of its occurrence to permit us to doubt the
truth of the narrative. It is well known that during the worst period of
the French Revolution, in the massacres in the prisons on Sept. 2, 1792,
some of the mob who had literally wearied their arms in hewing down the
prisoners let loose from the jails, took a momentary fit of compunction,
were seized with pity for some of the victims, and after saving them
from their murderers, accompanied them home, and witnessed with tears of
joy the meeting between them and their relations. We are not warranted,
after such facts have been recorded on authentic evidence in all ages,
in asserting that this transient humanity is assumed or hypocritical.
The conclusion rather is, that the human mind is so strangely compounded
of good and bad principles, and contains so many veins of thought
apparently irreconcilable with each other, that scarce any thing can be
set down as absolutely impossible, but every alleged fact is to be
judged of mainly by the testimony by which it is supported, and its
coincidence with what has elsewhere been observed of that strange
compound of contradictions, the human heart.
In the events which have been mentioned, the Crusaders were victorious;
and the Crescent, in the outset of the contest, waned before the Cross.
But it was only for a time that it did so. The situation of Palestine in
Asia, constituting it the advanced post as it were of Christendom across
the sea, in the regions of Islamism, perpetually exposed it to the
attack of the Eastern powers. They were at home, and fought on their own
ground, and with their own weapons, in the long contest which followed
the first conquest of Palestine; whereas the forces of the Christians
required to be transported, at a frightful expense of life, over a
hazardous journey of fifteen hundred miles in length, or conveyed by sea
at a very heavy cost from Marseilles, Genoa, or Venice. Irresistible in
the first onset, the armament of the Christians gradually dwindled away
as the first fervour of the Holy Wars subsided, and the interminable
nature of the conflict in which they were engaged with the Oriental
powers became apparent. It was the same thing as Spain maintaining a
transatlantic contest with her South American, or England with her North
American colonies. Indeed, the surprising thing, when we consider the
exposed situation of the kingdom of Palestine, the smallness of its
resources, and the scanty and precarious support it received, after the
first burst of the Crusades was over, from the Western powers, is not
that it was at last destroyed, but that it existed so long as it did.
The prolongation of its life was mainly owing to the extraordinary
qualities of one man.
It is hard to say whether the heroism of Richard Coeur de Lion has
been most celebrated in Europe or Asia. Like Solomon, Alexander the
Great, Haroun El Raschid, Charlemagne, and Napoleon, his fame has taken
root as deeply in the East as in the West, among his enemies as his
friends; among the followers of Mahomet as the disciples of the Cross.
If he is the hero of European romance,--if he is the theme of the
Troubadour's song, he is not less celebrated among the descendants of
the Saracens; his exploits are not less eagerly chanted in the tents of
the children of Ishmael. To this day, when an Arab's steed starts at a
bush in the desert, his master asks him if he expects to see Richard
issue from the covert. He possessed that surprising personal strength
and daring valour which are so highly prized by warriors in all rude
periods, and united with those qualities that singleness of heart and
_bonhommie_ of disposition, which, not less powerfully in the great, win
upon the hearts of men. His chief qualities--those which have given him
his deathless fame--undoubtedly were his heroic courage, extraordinary
personal strength, and magnanimity of mind. But if his campaigns with
Saladin are attentively considered, it will appear that he was also a
great general; and that his marvellous successes were as much owing to
his conduct as a commander as his prowess as a knight. This is more
particularly conspicuous, in the manner in which he conducted his then
sorely diminished army on Acre to within sight of Jerusalem, surrounded
as it was the whole way by prodigious clouds of Asiatic horse, headed by
the redoubtable Saladin. Beyond all doubt he would, but for the
defection of Philip Augustus and France, have wrested Palestine from the
Infidels, and again planted the Cross on Mount Calvary, despite the
whole forces of the East, led by their ablest and most powerful sultans.
His grief at not being able to accomplish this glorious object, is well
described by Michaud--
"After a month's abode at Bethnopolis, seven leagues from
Jerusalem, the Crusaders renewed their complaints, and exclaimed
with sadness, 'We shall never go to Jerusalem!' Richard, with heart
torn by contending feelings, while he disregarded the clamours of
the pilgrims, shared their grief, and was indignant at his own
fortune. One day, that his ardour in pursuing the Saracens had led
him to the heights of Emmaus, from which he beheld the towers of
Jerusalem, he burst into tears at the sight, and, covering his face
with his buckler, declared he was unworthy to contemplate the Holy
City which his arms could not deliver."--_Hist. des Croisades_, ii.
399.
As a specimen of the magnitude of the battles fought in this Crusade, we
take that of Assur, near Ptolemais--
"Two hundred thousand Mussulmans were drawn up in the plains of
Assur, ready to bar the passage of the Christian army, and deliver
a decisive battle. No sooner did he perceive the Saracen array,
than Richard divided his army into five corps. The Templars formed
the first; the warriors of Brittany and Anjou the second; the king,
Guy, and the men of Poitou the third; the English and Normans,
grouped round the royal standard, the fourth; the Hospitallers the
fifth; and behind them marched the archers and javelin men. At
three o'clock in the afternoon, the army was all arranged in order
of battle, when all at once a multitude of Saracens appeared in
rear, who descended from the mountains which the Crusaders had just
crossed. Amongst them were Bedouin Arabs, bearing bows and round
bucklers; Scythians with long bows, and mounted on tall and
powerful horses; Ethiopians of a lofty stature, with their sable
visages strangely streaked with white. These troops of barbarians
advanced on all sides against the Christian army with the rapidity
of lightning. The earth trembled under their horses' feet. The din
of their clarions, cymbals, and trumpets, was so prodigious, that
the loudest thunder could not have been heard. Men were in their
ranks, whose sole business it was to raise frightful cries, and
excite the courage of the Mussulman warriors by chanting their
national songs. Thus stimulated, their battalions precipitated
themselves upon the Crusaders, who were speedily assailed at once
in front, both flanks, and rear--enveloped by enemies, say the old
chronicles, as the eyelashes surround the EYE. After their arrows
and javelins were discharged, the Saracens commenced the attack
with the lance, the mace, and the sword. An English chronicle aptly
compares them to smiths, and the Crusaders to the anvil on which
their hammers rang. Meanwhile, the Franks did not for a moment
intermit their march towards Assur, and the Saracens, who sought in
vain to shake their steady ranks, called them 'a nation of iron.'
"Richard had renewed his orders for the whole army to remain on the
defensive, and not to advance against the enemy till six trumpets
sounded--two at the head of the army, two in the centre, two in the
rear. This signal was impatiently expected; the barons and knights
could bear every thing except the disgrace of remaining thus
inactive in presence of an enemy, who without intermission renewed
his attacks. Those of the rear-guard had already began to reproach
Richard with having forgotten them; they invoked in despair the
protection of St George, the patron of the brave. At last some of
the bravest and most ardent, forgetting the orders they had
received, precipitated themselves on the Saracens. This example
soon drew the Hospitallers after them; the contagion spread from
rank to rank, and soon the whole Christian army was at blows with
the enemy, and the scene of carnage extended from the sea to the
mountains. Richard showed himself wherever the Christians had need
of his succour; his presence was always followed by the flight of
the Turks. So confused was the _melee_, so thick the dust, so
vehement the fight, that many of the Crusaders fell by the blows of
their comrades, who mistook them for enemies. Torn standards,
shivered lances, broken swords, strewed the plain. Such of the
combatants as had lost their arms, hid themselves in the bushes, or
ascended trees; some, overcome with terror, fled towards the sea,
and from the top of the rocks precipitated themselves into its
waves.
"Every instant the combat became warmer and more bloody. The whole
Christian army was now engaged in the battle, and returning on its
steps, the chariot which bore the royal standard was in the
thickest of the fight. Ere long, however, the Saracens were unable
to sustain the impetuous assault of the Franks. Boha-Eddin, an
eyewitness, having quitted the Mussulman centre, which was put to
the route, fled to the tent of the Sultan, where he found the
Sultan, who was attended only by seventeen Mamelukes. While their
enemies fled in this manner, the Christians, hardly able to credit
their victory, remained motionless on the field which they had
conquered. They were engaged in tending their wounded, and in
collecting the arms which lay scattered over the field of battle,
when all at once twenty thousand Saracens, whom their chief had
rallied, fell upon them. The Crusaders overwhelmed with heat and
fatigue, and not expecting to be attacked, showed at first a
surprise which bordered on fear. Taki-Eddin, nephew of Saladin, at
the head of the bravest enemies, led on the Turks, at the head of
whom were seen the Mameluke guard of Saladin, distinguished by
their yellow banner. So vehement was their onset, that it ploughed
deep into the Crusaders' ranks; and they had need of the presence
and example of Richard, before whom no Saracen could stand, and
whom the contemporary chronicles compare to a reaper cutting down
corn. At the moment when the Christians, again victorious, resumed
their march towards Assur, the Mussulmans, impelled by despair,
again attacked their rear-guard. Richard, who had twice repulsed
the enemy, no sooner heard the outcry, than, followed only by
fifteen knights, he flew to the scene of combat, shouting aloud the
war-cry of the Christians--'God protect the Holy Sepulchre!' The
bravest followed their king; the Mussulmans were dispersed at the
first shock, and their army, then a third time vanquished, would
have been totally destroyed, had not night and the forest of Assur
sheltered them from the pursuit of the enemy. As it was they lost
eight thousand men, including thirty-two of their bravest emirs
slain; while the victory did not cost the Christians a thousand
men. Among the wounded was Richard himself, who was slightly hurt
in the breast. But the victory was prodigious, and if duly improved
by the Crusaders, without dissension or defection, would have
decided the fate of Palestine and of that Crusade."--_Hist. des
Croisades_, i. 468-471.
These extracts convey a fair idea of M. Michaud's power of description
and merits as an historian. He cannot be said to be one of the highest
class. He does not belong to the school who aim at elevating history to
its loftiest pitch. The antiquarian school never have, and never will do
so. The minute observation and prodigious attentions to detail which
their habits produce, are inconsistent with extensive vision. The same
eye scarcely ever unites the powers of the microscope and the telescope.
He has neither the philosophic mind of Guizot, nor the pictorial eye of
Gibbon; he neither takes a luminous glance like Robertson, nor sums up
the argument of a generation in a page, like Hume. We shall look in vain
in his pages for a few words diving into the human heart such as we find
in Tacitus, or splendid pictures riveting every future age as in Livy.
He is rather an able and animated abridger of the chronicles, than an
historian. But in that subordinate, though very important department,
his merits are of a very high order. He is faithful, accurate, and
learned; he has given a succinct and yet interesting detail, founded
entirely on original authority, of the wars of two centuries. Above all,
his principles are elevated, his feelings warm, his mind lofty and
generous. He is worthy of his subject, for he is entirely free of the
grovelling utilitarian spirit, the disgrace and the bane of the age in
which he writes. His talents for description are very considerable, as
will be apparent from the account we hope to give in a future Number of
his highly interesting travels to the principal scenes of the Crusades.
It is only to be regretted, that in his anxiety to preserve the fidelity
of his narrative, he has so frequently restrained it, and given us
rather descriptions of scenes taken from the old chronicles, than such
as his own observations and taste could have supplied. But still his
work supplies a great desideratum in European literature; and if not the
best that could be conceived, is by much the best that has yet appeared
on the subject. And it is written in the spirit of the age so finely
expressed in the title given by one of the most interesting of the
ancient chroniclers to his work--
"Gesta DEI per Francos."[7]
FOOTNOTES:
[Footnote 5: Michaud: _Histoire des Croisades_.]
[Footnote 6: Porson.]
[Footnote 7: "The doings of God by the Franks."]
THE BURDEN OF SION.
BY DELTA.
[This Ode, composed by Judas Hallevy bar Samuel, a Spanish Rabbi of
the twelfth century, is said to be still recited every year, during
the Fast observed in commemoration of the Destruction of Jerusalem.
The versifier has been much indebted to a very literal translation,
from the original necessarily obscure Spanish of the Rabbi, into
excellent French, by Joseph Mainzer, Esq., a gentleman to whom the
sacred music of this country is under great and manifold
obligations.]
Captive and sorrow-pale, the mournful lot
Say, hast thou, Sion, of thy sons forgot?
Hast thou forgot the innocent flocks, that lay
Prone on thy sunny banks, or frisk'd in play
Amid thy lilied meadows? Wilt thou turn
A deaf ear to thy supplicants, who mourn
Downcast in earth's far corners? Unto thee
Wildly they turn in their lone misery;
For wheresoe'er they rush in their despair,
The pitiless Destroyer still is there!
Eden of earth! despisest thou the sighs
From the slave's heart that rise
To thee, amid his fetters--who can dare
Still to hope on in his forlorn despair--
Whose morn and evening tears for thee fall down
Like dews on Hermon's thirsty crown--
And who would blessed be in all his ills,
Wander'd his feet once more even on thy desert hills!
But not is Hope's fair star extinguish'd quite
In rayless night;
And, Sion, as thy fortunes I bewail,
Harsh sounds my voice, as of the birds that sail
The stormy dark. Let but that star be mine,
And through the tempest tremulously shine;
So, when the brooding clouds have overpast,
Rejoicing, with the dawn, may come at last,
Even as an instrument, whose lively sound
Makes the warm blood in every bosom bound,
And whose triumphant notes are given
Freely in songs of thanksgiving to Heaven!
Bethel!--and as thy name's name leaves my tongue,
The very life-drops from my heart are wrung!
Thy sanctuary--where, veil'd in mystic light,
For ever burning, and for ever bright,
Jehovah's awful majesty reposed,
And shone for aye heaven's azure gates unclosed--
Thy sanctuary!--where from the Eternal flow'd
The radiance of his glory, in whose power
Noonday itself like very darkness show'd,
And stars were none at midnight's darkest hour--
Thy sanctuary! oh _there!_ oh _there!_ that I
Might breathe my troubled soul out, sigh on sigh,
_There_, where thine effluence, Mighty God, was pour'd
On thine Elect, who, kneeling round, adored!
Stand off! the place is holy. Know ye not,
Of potter's clay the children, that this spot
Is sacred to the Everlasting One--
The Ruler over heaven, and over earth?
Stand off, degraded slaves, devoid of worth!
Nor dare profane again, as ye have done,
This spot--'tis holy ground--profane it not!
Oh, might I cleave, with raptured wing, the waste
Of the wide air, then, where in splendour lie
Thy ruins, would my sorrowing spirit haste,
Forth to outpour its flood of misery!--
There, where thy grandeur owns a dire eclipse,
Down to the dust as sank each trembling knee,
Unto thy dear soil should I lay my face,
Thy very stones in rapture to embrace,
And to thy smouldering ashes glue my lips!
And how, O Sion! how should I but weep,
As on our fathers' tombs I fondly gazed,
Or, wistfully, as turn'd mine eye
To thee, in all thy desolate majesty,
Hebron, where rests the mighty one in sleep,
And high his pillar of renown was raised!
There--in thine atmosphere--'twere blessedness
To breathe a purer ether. Oh! to me
Thy dust than perfumes dearer far should be,
And down thy rocks the torrent streams should roam
With honey in their foam!
Oh, sweet it were--unutterably sweet--
Even though with garments rent, and bleeding feet,
To wander over the deserted places
Where once thy princely palaces arose,
And 'mid the weeds and wild-flowers mark the traces,
Where the ground, yawning in its earthquake throes,
The ark of covenant and the cherubim
Received, lest stranger hands, that reek'd the while
With blood of thine own children, should defile
Its heaven-resplendent glory, and bedim:
And my dishevell'd locks, in my despair,
All madly should I tear;
And as I cursed the day that dawn'd in heaven--
The day that saw thee to destruction given,
Even from my very frenzy should I wring
A rough, rude comfort in my sorrowing.
What other comfort can I know? Behold,
Wild dogs and wolves with hungry snarl contend
Over thy prostrate mighty ones; and rend
Their quivering limbs, ere life hath lost its hold.
I sicken at the dawn of morn--the noon
Brings horror with its brightness; for the day
Shows but the desolate plain,
Where, feasting on the slain,
(Thy princes,) flap and scream the birds of prey!
Chalice from Marah's bitterest spring distill'd!
Goblet of woe, to overflowing fill'd!
Who, quaffing thee, can live? Give me but breath--
A single breath--that I once more may see
The dreary vision. I will think of thee,
Colla, once more--of Cliba will I think--
Then fearlessly and freely drink
The cup--the fatal cup--whose dregs are death.
Awake thee, Queen of Cities, from thy slumber--
Awake thee, Sion! Let the quenchless love
Of worshippers, a number beyond number,
A fountain of rejoicing prove.
Thy sorrows they bewail, thy wounds they see,
And feel them as their own, and mourn for thee!
Oh, what were life to them, did Hope not hold
Her mirror, to unfold
That glorious future to their raptured sight,
When a new morn shall chase away this night!
Even from the dungeon gloom,
Their yearning hearts, as from a tomb,
Are crying out--are crying out to thee;
And, as they bow the knee
Before the Eternal, every one awaits
The answer of his prayer, with face toward thy gates.
Earth's most celestial region! Babylon
The mighty, the magnificent, to thee,
With all the trappings of her bravery on,
Seems but a river to the engulfing sea.
What are its oracles but lies? 'Tis given
Thy prophets only to converse with Heaven--
The hidden to reveal, the dark to scan,
And be the interpreters of God to man.
The idols dumb that erring men invoke,
Themselves are vanities, their power is smoke:
But, while the heathen's pomp is insecure,
Is transient, thine, O Sion! shall endure;
For in thy temples, God, the only Lord,
Hath been, and still delights to be, adored.
Blessed are they, who, by their love,
Themselves thy veritable children prove!
Yea! blessed they who cleave
To thee, with faithful hearts, and scorn to leave!
Come shall the day--and come it may full soon--
When thou, more splendid than the moon,
Shalt rise; and, triumphing o'er night,
Turn ebon darkness into silver light:
The glory of thy brightness shall be shed
Around each faithful head:
Rising from thy long trance, earth shall behold
Thee loftier yet, and lovelier than of old;
And portion'd with the saints in bliss shall be
All who, through weal and woe, were ever true to thee!
FOOTNOTES:
[Footnote 7: "The doings of God by the Franks."]
RHYMED HEXAMETERS AND PENTAMETERS.
[This species of versification, consisting of rhymed Hexameter and
Pentameter lines, we do not remember to have seen before attempted,
and we now offer it as a literary curiosity. It is, perhaps,
subject to the objection that applies against painted statuary, as
combining embellishments of a character not altogether consistent,
and not adding to the beauty of the result. But we are not without
a feeling that some additional pleasure is thus conveyed to the
mind. The experiment, of course, is scarcely possible, except in
quatrains of an epigrammatic structure. But the examples are
selected from the most miscellaneous sources that readily
occurred.]
HIS OWN EPITAPH.
BY ENNIUS.
Adspicite, O cives! senis Ennii imagini' formam;
Hic vostrum panxit maxuma facta patrum.
Nemo me lacrumis decoret, nec funera fletu
Faxit. Cur? volito vivu' per ora virum.
See, O citizens! here old Ennius's image presented,
Who to your forefathers' deeds gave their own glory again.
Honour me not with your tears; by none let my death be lamented:
Why? still in every mouth living I flit among men.
ON GELLIA.
FROM MARTIAL.
Amissum non flet, cum sola est, Gellia patrem;
Si quis adest, jussae prosiliunt lacrymae.
Non dolet hic, quisquis laudari, Gellia, quaerit;
Ille dolet vere qui sine teste dolet.
Gellia, when she's alone, doesn't weep the death of her father;
But, if a visitor comes, tears at her bidding appear.
Gellia, they do not mourn who are melted by vanity rather;
They are true mourners who weep when not a witness is near.
TO CECILIANUS.
FROM MARTIAL.