ney through the interior, the day before that on which this entry was made in the journal of Lord Carlisle; and during that journey the only experience we had of robbers was meeting four hang-dog-looking fellows, marching down from Phyle to Athens, with their arms pinioned behind them, under the escort of a strong body of the armed police. So little apprehension was felt, that we should as soon have thought of taking pistols for a journey from Boston to Northampton, as for one from Athens to Thermopyla. It is true that, since the cruel measure adopted by the Turkish government, of sending twenty or thirty thousand Greeks away from Constantinople, to their utter ruin, robbery has broken out in the provinces, and piracy among the islands, to an alarming, but not unnatural extent. The English Reviewers have been careful to quote what Lord Carlisle says in disparagement of the Greeks, without hinting that he has had the impartiality to give them credit for merits which any nation may be proud of possessing. We will supply the deficiency by the following passage, which is both just and generous. "When it is remembered that, about twenty-three years ago, the only building at the Peiræus was a small convent, and that at the same time there was not a single entire roof in Athens; and that we now find, at the harbor, noble wharves and substantial streets, and at the base of the Acropolis, not indeed a renewal of its elder glories, but what would be thought anywhere a fresh and comely city; it would be impossible to deny either the possibility or presence of progress: it is of deeper importance, that, as I believe, there undoubtedly are solid materials for advance and improvement among the bulk of the Greek people themselves; their high intelligence no detractor could think of denying; they seem capable of patient and persevering industry; the zeal for education pierces to the very lowest ranks; many instances are known of young men and young women coming to Athens, as I before had occasion to remark, and engaging in service for no other wages than the permission or opportunity to attend some place of instruction; and when an exception is made of the classes most exposed to contact with the abuses of government, and the frivolities of a society hurriedly forced into a premature and imperfect refinement, there is much of homely simplicity, cheerful temperance, and hearty good-will amidst the main body of the country population. The most essential element in thus forecasting the destinies of a people is their religion: it is notorious that the religion of the modern Greeks is encumbered with very much both of ignorance and superstition: I believe that, in instituting a fair comparison of the Greek Church with her Latin sister, she must be acknowledged to lag behind her, in the activity and zeal which constitute the missionary character of a church, and in the spirit of association for purposes of benevolence; but she possesses a superiority in two points, full of value and pregnant with promise; she has more tolerance towards other religious communities, and she encourages the perusal of the Holy Scriptures." - pp. 209-211. ART. VI.-1. Deutsche Geschichte von den Aeltesten Zeiten bis auf die Gegenwart. Von ADAM PFAFF. (German History from the Earliest to the Present Times.) In Four Volumes. Vols. I. III. Brunswick: Westermann. 1852-54. 2. Geschichte des Deutschen Volkes. Von JACOB VEREDEY. (History of the German People.) In Four Volumes. Vol. I. Berlin: Dunker. London: Williams and Norgate. THE praiseworthy zeal of the Germans to clear up the comparative darkness of their early history has recently enriched their literature with several valuable works, among which those named at the head of this article may be mentioned as productions of no inconsiderable merit. In the case of each, so huge a mass of facts is to be compressed into the intended four volumes, that we can hardly conceive how the author can hope to reach "die Gegenwart" at the end of the fourth, especially when we consider that in the third volume of the first-named work we are still in the thirteenth century, and that the author of the second has devoted his entire first volume, or the fourth part of his whole book, to the time anterior to the Carlovingian period. He has then only just reached the dawn of the new era, represented by the great hero on whom, as a foundation, the history of the Middle Ages, and consequently also that of modern times, rests. It is to him that we propose to devote our further remarks. There is a peculiar charm in the close observation of the private life and individual habits of a truly great man. The reverential admiration with which we look up to him softens into that sympathy which connects one human being with another; we rise from our knees, and gain confidence to grasp his proffered hand. The common saying, that "No man is a hero to his valet de chambre," is the dictate of a low and puerile mind. If the greatness of the man shrinks into littleness before the eye of the lackey who administers to his physical wants, it is only because the soul of this latter dwells in paltriness, and is not able to appreciate the superiority of the hero. The fly, that swells to the size of an elephant when seen through a magnifying-glass, remains a fly after all, just as a giant, who may be diminished to a dwarf when depicted on a reduced scale, remains a giant. Our intimate knowledge of the man in the true hero does not lower him, but it elevates us, by giving us the consciousness of our relationship to him. Early history seldom offers us the enjoyment we value so highly. Even among the celebrated biographies of the ancients, there are only a few which introduce us to the households of the heroes they commemorate. In most of them the privacy of their domestic relations is but slightly touched upon. The reverse can be expected only when the biographer is a contemporary, or when his work is at least founded on contemporary works, diaries, private letters, or other documents of that nature. For that very reason, our information as to the domestic lives and personal habits of the eminent men of the Middle Ages cannot be otherwise than very scanty. The ignorant monks to whom we are indebted for the meagre chronicles of the first eleven centuries after Christ were no painters of character, even in rough sketches. We must be content with the narration of events; even their causes often remain unrevealed. In the later centuries, on the other hand, when literature begins to dawn again, history and romance are so indiscriminately mixed and blended, that it seems frequently still more difficult to recognize, through the veil of time and poetry, the truth of a really historical character. Fortunately, one of the greatest men of the Middle Ages, and indeed of all ages, - Charlemagne, - found among his personal attendants a faithful, sensible, and accurate biographer. This was Eginhard, or Einhard, his secretary and companion, who was educated under the eye of his royal patron. Guided by the hand of this trustworthy man, let us then take a ramble through the palaces of the great Emperor, peep into every room which our conductor consents to open for us, sit down with him at table, watch his entertainments, and study his rural occupations. On the rude picture of his time the gigantic figure of Charlemagne stands prominent as that of the Christian hero, -the representative of the principle of Christianity as understood by an age gradually emerging from the darkest night of a bloody and even degenerate paganism. It is true, that already for nearly three centuries baptized kings had sat on the throne of France, and that the greater part of the Teutonic nations who overspread Italy and Spain had called themselves Christians during a still longer space of time. But Christianity had hitherto been little more than a name among them. All the Teutonic nations, ever since they appear in history, are known to have had various excellent aristocratico-republican institutions and laws, worthy of free and warlike men. But the character of these the inheritance of their fathers remained decidedly heathenish. The Church of Christ, even under Christian rulers, exercised little influence on them. Although under the Merovingian kings the high dignitaries of the Church were richly endowed, and some of them-wily, ambitious men-rose to great authority, they obtained their power notwithstanding their clerical office rather than on account of it. Before Charlemagne, the Church stood among the Franks aloof from all worldly affairs, a receptacle and asylum for those who fled from the savage clangor of arms to her bosom, but without the power to illumine the dark night which surrounded her by the rays of her divine doctrines. When the Franks, next to the Lombards the most barbarous among the German races, first settled in France, the sees of the Church of Gaul were filled by pious and learned bishops, some of whom were Arians, others Catholics. The disciples of St. Benedict, who followed them, also brought with them some remnant of the erudition of the Italian Church. Thus it remained through the next two centuries. But their well-endowed palaces had long since been grudged ecures. them by the Frankish conquerors. Gradually, the younger sons of the nobility, ignorant men, grown up in war or in the vicious revelries of the court, were forced into the fat sinAt the ascent of the Carlovingians to the throne of the Frankish realm, every trace of learning and of higher mental cultivation had disappeared from the Church of Gaul.* No wonder then that this had acquired less influence than any other branch of the Occidental Church. Pagan customs continued to prevail. The ancient Germanic duty of bloodrevenge was still maintained. Even the heathenish custom of bigamy the clergy had not yet succeeded in abolishing. Among the Merovingian kings this enormity prevailed. Charles Martel, the great conqueror of the Saracens, the grandfather of Charlemagne, had two lawful spouses (although the Church acknowledged only one); and Charlemagne's father, Pepin, was the first king of the Franks - we speak of course only of those who reached manhood — who had but one wife. Indeed, the private lives of the royal families of the Franks, Burgundians, and Lombards bear most decidedly the stamp of a bloody, savage heathenism. The awful family feuds of the Atreides seem to have been revived in those terrible scenes, and their example makes us feel most clearly that in those barbarous times the divine doctrines of the Redeemer may have lived in individual hearts, but could not yet have gained influence in a society where such atrocities were tolerated. - Although the centuries before Charlemagne were already stained by the horrors of so-called religious wars, as well as by oppression and persecution for mere shades of Christian belief, he was the first sovereign who made the spreading of the Gospel the aim of his life. The means which he used for this end seem, indeed, to our better enlightened minds, in direct contradiction with the spirit of the religion which he tried to force upon his conquered enemies. But for this he must accuse his age, not himself. He was deeply penetrated by the mysterious doctrine of the atonement and the divine * St. Boniface, who exercised his pious activity in Germany, then the eastern part of the Frankish realm, under Charles Martel and Pepin the Short, did not belong to the Church of Gaul; he and his immediate followers were Anglo-Saxons. |