Chapter XXIV (2)

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.”