the inherent weakness of Protestantism, or at least of his want of confidence in its stability. For several times, in different parts of the work, we have the same miserably low-minded estimate of the motives which induced that truly noble man to found a lectureship on "the truths of the Christian religion in general, which should not enter on the discussion of those controversies by which Christians were divided among themselves." Thus in the fourth volume of the "Démonstrations Evangéliques," after quoting the terms of the bequest, as providing pour un certain nombre de sermons qu'on doit prêcher toutes les années sur les vérités de la Religion Chrétienne en général, sans entrer dans les disputes particulières qui divisent les Chrétiens," the writer adds, "il sentait que la secte qu'il professait ne gagnerait rien à cette discussion." And again in the sixth volume," on aperçoit facilement, d'après la disposition qu'on vient de lire, que le testateur, intimement convaincu de la foiblesse des sectes Protestantes, craignit de les détruire toutes, et la sienne en particulier, en les mettant aux prises, et jugea à propos, pour éviter ce danger, de s'attacher à la défense du Christianisme en général." (!) Surely it might have occurred to the mind of any candid Catholic that the defence of Christianity is one thing, and the defence of any particular denomination of Christians another; and that to such a lofty and comprehensive mind as that of Robert Boyle it might seem to be expedient to unite all the churches of Christendom in defence of their common cause, by excluding from his lectureship everything that might tend to revive unnecessarily the points of comparatively minor moment on which they differed among themselves. And, strange to say, this more liberal view of the matter is given by the French translator of Samuel Clarke's Demonstration, which is inserted in the fifth volume of the "Démonstrations;" for, notwithstanding their common connexion with the Romish Church, and the vigilant editorial supervision of Abbé Migne, the translators are not always found to be of the same mind. After narrating the terms of the bequest, it is added, "il fit plus, car il prit soin de marquer en général le sujet sur lequel il entendait que cette lecture roulât. Il interdit à ceux qui entreraient dans la carrière qu'il ouvrait la controverse contre les sectes particulières qui partagent le Christianisme. Il y a tout lieu de croire que les sages réflexions que cet habile homme avait faites sur la manie de prédicateurs qui, dans presque tous les pays, s'acharnent sur des disputes de néant, pendant qu'ils négligent les matières les plus importantes; il y a, dis-je, tout lieu de croire que ces réflexions ont produit la cause de son codicille qui restreint la lecture en question aux vérités générales et aux principes de la foi." "Il ordonna en un mot que cette lecture fut toute employée à mettre en evidence les preuves de la vérité de la Religion Chrétienne, et à les défendre contre les attaques des infidèles, notoirement tels, comme sont les Athées, les Déistes, les Païens, les Juifs, et les Mahométans, sans toucher aux controverses que les diverses Sociétés de Chrétiens ont les unes avec les autres." The plan of the "Démonstrations Evangéliques" proceeds on a different principle; it attempts to combine the defence of Christianity with the vindication of Popery, and is as much directed against the Protestant as against the infidel cause. We think that M. Abbé Migne had done well to imitate the example of Robert Boyle, and that, in doing so, he would have shewn more of a truly Catholic spirit, and less of a narrow sectarian bigotry. On the whole, this collection of "Démonstrations Evangéliques," although far from being either complete or in all respects unexceptionable, is a valuable contribution to sacred literature. It offers, at a cheap rate, and in a commodious form, a French version of some standard works; and did it contain nothing else than the massive treatises of Origen, Eusebius, and Huet, it might be accepted with gratitude by every student of Apologetics. But it contains much more. It places before the English reader many treatises well known on the Continent, but hitherto almost inaccessible to ourselves, which possess a high value, both in a literary and theological point of view such as, the comprehensive work of Statler on the "Certainty of the Christian Religion;" the "Historic Proof," by Beauzée; the "Philosophy of Religion," by the Abbé Para du Phanjhas; and the Poems of Cardinal de Bernis and of Cardinal Polignac, ("La Religion Vengée" and "Anti-Lucretius,") and some others, which have hitherto been comparatively little known to the English reader. And we cannot help thinking that it may be salutary to our Continental neighbours themselves to be made acquainted with some of the standard works of our great English apologists: and that the translations of such treatises as those of Clarke, Lesley, Stanhope, West, Bentley, Littleton, Warburton, Chalmers, and Keith, may lead some at least of the more candid Churchmen of Rome to concur with the distinguished Abbé Guenée in saying, "Rendons justice à la nation Anglaise, quoique maintenant notre ennemie. Il est glorieux pour elle que la religion Chrétienne y trouve des défenseurs si zélés parmi ceux qui y occupent les premiers rangs dans la littérature, et les plus hautes places dans l'Etat. Nous accusons souvent l'Angleterre comme la source de l'incrédulité parmi nous: et de son côté, elle nous rend bien ce reproche; mais, il faut l'avouer, si l'on ne saurait nier que la religion n'ait été souvent et vivement attaquée par quelques écrivains de cette nation, elle n'a guère été nulle part plus savamment défendue." Net Results of 1848 in Germany and Italy. 359 ART. III.-1. Royalty and Republicanism in Italy. By JOSEPH MAZZINI. London, 1850. 2 Italy in 1848. By MARIOTTI. London, 1851. 3. Taschenbuch der Neuesten Geschichte. Von ROBT. PRUTZ. Dessau, 1851. 4. Germany in 1850; its Courts, Camps, and People. By the Baroness BLAZE DE BURY. London, 1850. PROBABLY since the fall of the Roman Empire the world has never seen a year so eventful and distracting as 1848. It seemed like a century compressed into a lustrum. Never was there a year so distinguished beyond all previous example by the magnitude and the multiplicity of its political changes-by the violence of the shock which it gave to the framework of European society -by the oscillations of opinion and success between the two great parties in the Continental struggle. Never was there a year so pregnant with instruction and with warning—so rich in all the materials of wisdom both for sovereign and for peopleso crowded with wrecks and ruins, with the ruins of ancient grandeur, and the wrecks of glorious anticipations-so filled with splendid promises and paltry realizations, with hopes brilliant and fantastic as fairy-land, with disappointments dismal and bitter as the grave. Thrones, which but yesterday had seemed based upon the everlasting hills, shattered in a day; sovereigns, whose wisdom had become a proverb, and sovereigns whose imbecility had been notorious, alike flying from their capitals, and abdicating without a natural murmur or a gallant struggle; rulers, who had long been the embodiment of obstinate resistance to all popular demands, vying with each other in the promptitude and the extent of their concessions; statesmen of the longest experience, the deepest insight, the acutest talentstatesmen like Metternich and Guizot-baffled, beaten, and chased away, and reaching their foreign banishment only to turn and gaze with a melancholy and bewildered air on the écroulement of schemes and systems of policy, the construction of which had been the labour of a lifetime; eminent men sinking into obscurity, and going out like snuff; obscure men rising at one bound into eminence and power; ambitious men finding the objects of their wildest hopes suddenly placed within their grasp; Utopian dreamers staggered and intoxicated by seeing their most gorgeous visions on the point of realization; patriots beholding the sudden and miraculous advent of that liberty which they had prayed for, fought for, suffered for, through years of imprisonment, poverty, and exile; nations, which had long pined in darkness, dazzled and bewildered by the blaze of instantaneous light; the powerful smitten with impotence; the peasant and the bondsman endowed with freedom and unresisted might; the first last and the last first ;-such were the strange phenomena of that marvellous era, which took away the breath of the beholder, which the journalist was unable to keep pace with, and "which panting Time toiled after in vain." The year opened with apparent tranquillity. In two quarters only of Europe had there been any indications of the coming earthquake; and to both of these the eyes of all friends of freedom were turned with hopeful interest and earnest sympathy. The first dawn of a new day had arisen in a country where least of all it could have been looked for-in Rome. There, in a state long renowned for the most corrupt, imbecile, mischievous administration of the western world, a new Pope, in the prime of life, full of respect for his sacred office, and deeply impressed with the solemn responsibilities of his high position, set himself with serious purpose and a single mind, though with limited views and inadequate capacities, to the task of cleansing those Augean stables from the accumulated filth of centuries. He commenced reform-where reform, though most rare, is always the most safe from above; he purified the grosser parts of the old administrative system; he shewed an active determination to put down all abuse, and to give his people the benefit of a really honest government; he ventured on the bold innovation, in itself a mighty boon and a strange progress, of appointing laymen to offices of state; and, finally, he convoked a representative assembly, and gave the Romans a constitution-the first they had seen since the days of Rienzi. His people were, as might have been anticipated, warmly grateful for the gifts, and enthusiastically attached to the person, of their excellent Pontiff; all Europe looked on with delight; Pio Nono was the hero of the day; and everything seemed so safe, so wise, so happy, that we felt justified in hoping that a new day had really dawned upon the ancient capital of the world. Sicily, too, had about the same time entered upon a struggle to recover some portion of her promised freedom and her stolen rights. Her wrongs had been so flagrant, so manifold, so monstrous; the despotism under which she groaned was at once so incapable, so mean, so low, so brutal; her condition was so wretched, and her capabilities so vast, that the sympathies of the world went with her in her struggle with her false and bad oppressor. All ranks of her citizens were unanimous in their resolution of resistance; even the priests, elsewhere the ready tools of tyranny, here fought on the side of the people, and blessed the arms and banners of the reformers; and what was still more First Movements of Italian Liberty. 361 remarkable, and of more hopeful augury, all classes seemed to put mutual jealousies aside, and to be actuated by the same spirit of sincere, self-denying, self-sacrificing patriotism. Their demands were moderate but firm, and so reasonable, that the mere fact of such demands having to be made, was an indelible disgrace to Naples. So far, too, their course had been singularly cautious; they had committed no blunder, they had displayed no sanguinary passion, and no violent excitement, and it was impossible not to hope everything from a contest so wisely conducted, and so unimpeachably just. At length, on the 8th of February, the Sicilians having been everywhere victorious, the preliminaries of an arrangement with the king of Naples were agreed to, on the basis of the constitution of 1812. So far all went well. In the meantime, excited or warned by the example of the Pope, and the enthusiasm of the Romans, other Italian princes began to move in the path of improvement. The King of Sardinia, the Grand Duke of Tuscany, and the King of Naples, promised a constitution to their subjects, and actually took measures for carrying these promises into effect. The excitement soon reached Lombardy; popular movements took place at Milan, but were repressed by the Austrian Government with even more than wonted promptitude and severity. Hungary had for some years been making great efforts towards national improvement, and some relaxation of the old feudal privileges, as well as towards a recovery of their old constitutional liberties; but Austria had steadily repressed all such exertions; and a long course of perfidy and oppression had at length so exasperated the Hungarians, and united all parties among them against the common enemy, that it became evident that the contest was approaching to an open rupture. Such was the position of affairs when the French Revolution of February came like an earthquake, astounding nations, “and, with fear of change, perplexing monarchs." The events which ensued are still fresh in the memory of all men. The democratic party throughout the whole of central Europe burned to follow the example of a movement the success of which had been so signal and so prompt. The effect was electric; but not everywhere, nor altogether, wholesome. The friends of freedom felt that the time was come to assert their cause, and to claim, without fear of a refusal, the rights so long withheld; while those nations which had already taken some steps towards the attainment of free institutions, and had hitherto deemed their progress rapid and brilliant beyond their most sanguine anticipations, now began to regard it as tardy, jog-trot, and inadequate. They looked askance on constitutional monarchy, and began to sigh |