NOTE

Concerning an Article in No. CV.

WE have received from Dr. Keith, author of a work on the Prophecies,' which we reviewed in this Number, a letter contradicting certain statements in that reviewal, and which the writer requests us to insert in this place. Dr. Keith's letter is so long in itself, and would have required so much comment from us, that we could not, under any circumstances, have complied with this request; but it contains distinct information that a detailed Answer to our Article on his book is about to be published in a separate form. The Doctor could hardly expect us to recur twice to the subject;-and it would, therefore, have been due to his own interests that we should wait for the appearance of this tract.

NOTE

To the Article on Cooke's Memoirs of Bolingbroke in No. CVIII. THE intelligent writer of some remarks on this Article in No. LXXXV. of the Printing Machine has addressed to us a letter, in which he affords still further confirmation of our opinion as to what he justly calls the niaiseries and blunders' of Mr. Cooke's book. One point on which we spoke with some degree of hesitation, namely the date of the first publication of Bolingbroke's famous letter to Sir William Windham, our correspondent has ascertained to be as we had suspected; and the matter is so important to Lord Bolingbroke's history, and so conclusive as to the ignorance and negligence of his lordship's recent biographer, that we think it worth while to subjoin our Correspondent's comment upon it. He says, 'In addition to the reasons assigned in the Quarterly Review for believing that the letter to Windham was not printed at the time at which it professes to have been (and probably was) written, several passages might have been quoted from it which show that the author had no intention of publishing it immediately, if at all. But, in point of fact, it was certainly bequeathed to Mallet only in manuscript. His copy, that which he sent to the printers, is in the Museum, along with all the other manuscripts left to him for publication by Bolingbroke. It is not in Bolingbroke's hand, nor are any of the other papers, but it is, like the rest, corrected throughout by his lordship. More than one amanuensis had been employed on it.'

We have examined the MS. in the Museum (4984, A. Plut. CXVI. E.), and find the case to be as stated by our correspondent, excepting that some entire pages towards the conclusion are in Bolingbroke's own handwriting.

This discovery appears to us to confirm our suspicion to absolute certainty -to give a totally new turn to the most important part of Bolingbroke's history-aud, moreover, to give the coup de grace to Mr. Wingrove Cooke's contemptible compilation.

THE

QUARTERLY REVIEW.

FEBRUARY, 1836.

ART. I.-Die Römische Päpste, ihre Kirche und ihre Staat im sechszehnten und siebzehnten Jahrhundert. Von Leopold Ranke. Erster band. Berlin. 1835.

(The Popes of Rome, their Church and State during the Sixteenth and Seventeenth Centuries.)

WE envy the dispassionate and philosophical serenity with

which the German historian may contemplate the most remarkable and characteristic portion of the annals of modern Europe-the rise, progress, and influence of the Papal power. In this country, the still-reviving, and, it is almost to be feared, unextinguishable animosity between the conflicting religious parties, the unfortunate connexion with the political feuds and hostilities of our own days, would almost inevitably, even if involuntarily, colour the page of the writer; while perfect and unimpassioned equability would provoke the suspicious and sensitive jealousy of the reader, to whichever party he might belong. On one side there is an awful and sacred reverence for the chair of St. Peter, which would shrink from examining too closely even the political iniquities, which the most zealous Roman Catholic cannot altogether veil from his reluctant and half-averted gaze; while, on the other, the whole Papal history is looked upon as one vast and unvarying system of fraud, superstition, and tyranny. In truth-notwithstanding the apparently uniform plan of the Papal policy-notwithstanding the rapid succession of ecclesiastics, who, elected in general at a late period of life, occupied the spiritual throne of the Vaticanthe annals of few kingdoms, when more profoundly considered, possess greater variety, are more strongly modified by the genius of successive ages, or are more influenced by the personal character of the reigning sovereign. Yet, in all times, to the Roman Catholic the dazzling halo of sanctity, to the Protestant the thick darkness which has gathered round the pontifical tiara, has obscured the peculiar and distinctive lineaments of the Gregories, and Innocents, and Alexanders. As a whole, the Papal history has been by no means deeply studied, or distinctly understood; in no country has the modern spiritual empire of Rome found its Livy or its Polybius; no masterly hand has traced the changes in its political relations to the rest of Europe from the real date of

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its temporal power, its alliance with the Frankish monarchs-nor the vicissitudes of its fortunes during its long struggle for supreAlmost at the same time the slave of the turbulent barons of Romagna, or of the ferocious populace of the city, and the powerful protector of the freedom of the young Italian republicsthe unwearied and at length victorious antagonist of the German emperors-the dictator of transalpine Europe;-now an exile from the imperial and Holy City, yet in exile swaying the destinies of kingdoms-triumphing even over its own civil dissensions, and concentrating its power, after it had been split asunder by schisms almost of centuries, not merely unenfeebled, but apparently with increased energy and ambition:-no subject would offer a more imposing or more noble theme for a great historian than that of Papal Rome; none would demand higher qualifications—the most laborious inquiry, the most profound knowledge of human nature, the most vivid and picturesque powers of description, the most dignified superiority to all the prepossessions of age, of country, and of creed.

Of all periods in the Papal history, none perhaps is less known to the ordinary reader, in this country at least, than that comprehended within the work of Mr. Ranke, the centuries which immediately followed the Reformation. Just about the time of that great æra in the religious and civil history of mankind, the reign of Charles V., the extraordinary characters of the ruling pontiffs, and the prominent part which they took in the affairs of Europe, have familiarized the least diligent readers of history with the names and the acts of Alexander VI., of Julius II., and of Leo X, The late Mr. Roscoe's life of the latter pontiff, though, from its feebler and less finished execution, it disappointed the expectations raised by that of Lorenzo de' Medici, filled up some part of this great chasm in our history. But, after the Protestant nations of Europe had seceded from the dominion of Rome, they seem to have taken no great interest in the state of the Papacy; they cared not to inquire by what hands the thunders of the Vatican were wielded, now that they were beyond their sphere: so that they scarcely perceived the effects of the Reformation itself upon the Papal system, the secret revolution in the court of Rome and in the whole of its policy, the different relation assumed by the Papal power towards that part of Europe which still acknowledged its authority.

This extraordinary fact, of the silent retirement of the Papal power almost entirely within its ecclesiastical functions; the complete subordination of the temporal interests of the Pope, as an Italian prince, to those of his spiritual supremacy; the renovation of the Papal energy in its contracted dominion over southern

Europe

Europe and its foreign possessions; its confirmed and consolidated power in the countries which had not rejected its supremacy, from the higher personal character of the pontiffs, who from this time, if darkened, to our judgment, by the varying shades of bigotry, were invariably men of high moral character, and of earnest and serious piety; the extension of its influence by the activity of the Religious Orders, more particularly the new institution of the Jesuits; the assumption of the general education of the people by this most skilfully organized and sagaciously administered community; these subjects have been first placed in a clear and attractive point of view by Professor Ranke. If we should find a fault in the history before us, it would be that on which we are most rarely called upon to animadvert, especially in German writers. Brevity is an offence against which our statutes are seldom put in force. Still where the author has made such laborious and extensive researches, and where his subject possesses so much inherent interest, we could have wished at times that he was less rapid, concise, and compressed-we could have borne greater fulness of development, a more detailed exposition of the course of events, and of the motives of the influential agents-more of the life and circumstance of history. In many parts the present reads like a bold and vigorous outline for a larger work. But having exhausted our critical fastidiousness on this point, we have only the more gratifying duty of expressing our high estimate of the value of the present volume, and our confident reliance on the brilliant promise of those which are to follow. To the high qualifications of profound research, careful accuracy, great fairness and candour, with a constant reference to the genius and spirit of each successive age, common to the historians of Germany, Mr. Ranke adds the charm of a singularly lucid, terse, and agreeable style. We do not scruple to risk our judgment on this point, which it is sometimes thought presumptuous in any one but a native to pronounce; as we are inclined to think, that for an historical style, which, above all others, demands fluency, vivacity, and perspicuity, there can be no testimony more valuable than the pleasure and facility with which it is read by foreigners.

Mr. Ranke is, we believe, the colleague of Mr. von Raumer in the historical department at the University of Berlin; and there can be no better proof of the wisdom with which the higher as well as the lower system of Prussian education is conducted, than the selection, or indeed the command, of two such men as connected with this distinguished province of public instruction.

Before we enter on the consideration of Mr. Ranke's history, it is right to give some account of his labours in searching out original sources of information, in order that we may justly appreciate

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the diligence of the writer, and the authority of his statements. We are the more anxious to do this, because the Professor seems to have derived great advantage from collections, the existence of which, at least to the extent and value described in his preface, is little suspected. Having exhausted the archives of Berlin, Mr. Ranke proceeded to Vienna. Vienna has long been a great centre of European politics. Besides the relations of Austria with Germany-from her connexions with Spain, with Belgium, with Lombardy, and with Rome, the imperial archives have been constantly accumulating their treasures of public documents. The court of Vienna has for a long time had a passion for collecting, amassing, and arranging such papers. The Court Library (Hof-Bibliothek) has been enriched by many important volumes from Modena, and the 'invaluable' Foscarini manuscripts from Venice-the collections of the Doge Marco Foscarini for the continuation of the Italian Chronicles and a very valuable collection made by Prince Eugene. The Imperial Archives are still richer; the greater part of the treasures which belonged to Venice have been restored to that city, but there is still a vast stock of papers relating to the history of Venice, original despatches, extracts from the customs of the state, called Rubricaria; narratives, of some of which no other copy is known to exist; lists of state-officers, chronicles and diaries. The archives of Vienna were of great value in illustrating the pontificates of Gregory XIII. and Sixtus V. Mr. Ranke's re

searches were next directed to the Venetian libraries. That of St. Mark is not only valuable for its own proper wealth, but as having received in latter days the wrecks of many old private collections. This last is the department which has been first discovered and explored by Mr. Ranke. Both at Venice and at Rome the nobility took a pride in the collection of family-papers, which, of course, are constantly interwoven with public affairs. In Venice, the great houses almost always possessed a cabinet of manuscripts attached to their libraries; some of these still remain, many were dispersed at the downfall of the Republic in 1797. At Rome, the great houses, almost invariably the descendants of the Papal families, the Barberinis, the Chigis, the Altieris, the Corsinis, the Albanis, have preserved vast collections relating to the period of their power and splendour. Mr. Ranke describes the importance of these documents as not inferior to those of the Vatican. The free and liberal access to these collections compensated to him for the somewhat stricted use of the Vatican treasures, imposed partly, it should seem, by some mere personal jealousy on the part of Monsignor Maio, the librarian, and partly from the natural reluctance to open at once all the secrets of that mysterious treasure-house to a foreigner and a Protestant. Mr. Ranke, however, observes with some justice

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