"It is the custom at sunset on that evening to kindle numerous immense fires throughout the country, built, like our bonfires, to a great height, the pile being composed of turf, bogwood, and such other combustibles as they can gather. The turf yields a steady substantial body of fire, the bogwood a most brilliant flame; and the effect of these great beacons blazing on every hill, sending up volumes of smoke from every point of the horizon, is very remarkable.... But something was to follow that puzzled me not a little; when the fire had burned for some hours and got low, an indispensable part of the ceremony commenced. Every one present of the peasantry passed through it, and several children were thrown across the sparkling embers, while a wooden frame of some eight feet long, with a horse's head fixed to one end, and a large white sheet thrown over it, concealing the wood and the man on whose head it was carried, made its appearance. This was greeted with loud shouts of 'The white horse!' and, having been safely carried by the skill of its bearer several times through the fire with a bold leap, it pursued the people, who ran screaming and laughing in every direction. I asked what the horse was meant for, and was told it represented all cattle." Pp. 105, 107.

Persons who have seen Merry or

Merrick Llwyd, in Monmouthshire, will at once recognise the justness of the description, "a wooden frame (pole) of some eight feet long, with a horse's head fixed to one end, and a large white sheet thrown over it, concealing the wood and the man on whose head it was carried." I do not, however, imagine that the horse's head is used in Wales with any lustral or piacular intention, as appears to be the case at the Irish festival. How far this signification is still understood by the persons who practise the ceremony, it may be difficult to say. Such usages often linger in popular habits and customs long after their original meaning is exploded.

Be this as it may, it is curious to find an Irish custom explained in the writings of a Jewish rabbi, a circumstance which widely opens the door to conjecture. Maimonides, in his More Nevochim, or "Instructor of the Perplexed," has a passage on the subject of passing through the fire, which explains the quotation given above with sufficient clearness.

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to remark that the advocates of those opinions which are destitute of foundation or utility, in order to confirm their superstitions, and to induce belief in them, artfully intimate that those who do not perform the actions by which their superstitions are confirmed are always punished by some misfortune or other; and therefore, when any evil accidentally happens, they extol such actions or rather superstitions as they wish to practise, hoping thereby to induce him to embrace their opinions. Thus, since it is well known, from the very nature of man, that there is nothing of which men are more afraid than of the loss of their property and children, therefore the worshippers of fire declared and circulated the opinion, that, if they did not cause their sons or daughters to pass through the fire, all their children would die; there can be no doubt, therefore, but that every one would hasten diligently to perform it, both from their great love to their children, and fear of losing them, and because of the facility of the art, nothing more being required than to lead the child through the fire, the performance of which was rendered still more probable by the children being committed to the care of the women, of whose intellectual weakness and consequent credence in such things no one is ignorant. Hence the Scripture vehemently opposes the action, and uses such arguments

against it as against no other kind of idolatry whatever, He hath given of his seed to Moloch, to defile my sanctuary, and to profane my Holy Name.' (Levit. xx. 3.) Moses therefore declares in the name of God, that, by that very act by which they expected to preserve the life of their children, by that act they shall destroy it; because God will exterminate both him who commits the crime, and also his family: 'I will set my face against that man, and against his family, and will cut him off.' (Lev. xx. 5.) Nevertheless traces of this species of superstition are still existing; for we see midwives take new-born children wrapped in swaddling clothes, and wave them to and fro in the smoke of herbs of an unpleasant odour thrown into the fire,-a relict, no doubt, of this passing through the fire, and one which ought not to be suffered. From this we may discover the perverse cunning of those men who propagated and established their error with such persuasive energy, that, although it has been combated by the law for more than two thousand years, yet vestiges of it are still remaining." (Townley's Maimonides, p. 209-211.)*

The origin of this practice may obviously be traced to the fact of the atmosphere's being purified by fire, and infectious disorders thereby kept off. The next step, which was from truth to superstition, would be to suppose that fire would act as a preventive by anticipation. Afterwards ensued those horrid practices of burning children in the fires of Moloch, with which every reader of the Carthaginian history is familiar. (See particularly the articles Moloch and Tophet in the Dictionnaire Mythologique of M. Noël, 2 vols. 8vo. Paris, 1823, 4th edition.)

Arthur Young, (father of the celebrated agriculturist,) has collected several classical illustrations of this practice, in his work on Idolatrous Corruptions in Religion, p. 117, and the passage is given at length by Mr. Townley, p. 360, note xl. without, however, correcting the slight mistake of" the Council of Trullo' to in Trullo, as he might have done. Mr. Townley also notices similar customs at Athens, in Scotland in the time of James I. (or 6th in the Scottish succession,) and in Cornwall, but without adverting to that in Ireland. M. de Sainmore, in his Histoire de Russie, (written to accompany the plates of M. David,) mentions this practice as still existing in Russia, when speaking of the idol KOUPALO.

"Le temple de ce dieu étoit au milieu des campagnes. Il étoit representé debout sur un piédestal, tenant entre ses mains une espèce de corne remplie de fleurs et de fruits. C'étoit la divinité de l'abondance; on l'imploroit au milieu des plaisirs, de la joie et des festins. On célébroit sa fête vers le commencement de l'été, c'est-a-dire, le 24 Juin, précisément le même jour et presque de la méme manière que nous celebrons la fête de St. Jean Baptiste. De jeunes garçons et de jeunes filles parés de guirlandes de fleurs, la tête couronnée de feuilles nouvelles, formoient des chœurs de danse et santoient légèrement par-dessus les feux qu'on avoit allumés. On n'entendoit par tout que les expressions de la joie et de bonheur, et le nom de KOUPALO étoit mille fois répeté dans des chansons.

"Le peuple slave conserve encore, en quelques lieux, l'usage de cette fête. On

from the More Nevochim of Maimonides, by James Townley, D.D. author of Illustrations of Biblical Literature." Lond. 1827, pp. 451.

passe dans les festins la nuit qui précède le jour de la fête. On allume des feux de joie, et l'on danse autour. Le bas peuple, en plusieurs endroits, appelle KOUPALNITSA, du nom de cette Divinité, SainteAgrippine, qu'on invoque le même jour."† (Vol. I. p. 9.)

M. Noël, in his Mythological Dictionary already referred to, says (art. FEU,)

"Le feu est une des principales divinités des Tartares idolâtres. Ils ne se laissent point aborder par des étrangers, sans que ceux-ci se soient purifiés en passant entre deux feux."

And under the same head he observes of the Virginians, (who seem to have carried this superstition to the greatest extreme,)

"Quand ces peuples reviennent de quelque expedition militaire, on qu'ils se soient heureusement tirés de quelque péril imminent, ils allument un grand feu, et temoignent leur joie en dansant à l'entour avec une gourde ou une sonnette à la main, comme s'ils rendaient grâces à cet

element de leur avoir sauvé la vie."

He remarks (art. PYROMANTIE,) "Quelques auteurs mettent au nombre des espèces de pyromantie l'abominable coutume qu'avaient certains peuple orientaux de faire passer leurs enfants par le feu en l'honneur de Moloch. Delrio y comprend aussi la superstition de ceux qui examinaient les symptômes des feux allumés la veille de la Saint Jean-Baptiste, et la coutume de danser à l'entour, ou de sauter par-dessus."

Arthur Young has referred, in illustration of these practices, to Virgil, En. xi. 785-9; see also a note in the Oxford edition of that classic, 1820, (an edition attributed to Dr. Pett, of Christ Church.)

I will only add, that, as the horse's head represents all cattle in Ireland, the obvious explanation is, that it appears as a substitute for them, and that the supposed benefit is derived to them through it as their representative. Yours, &c. CYDWELI.

+ The Abbé Périn, in his Abrégé de l'Histoire de Russie, (I. xxiii.) translates the name Koupalo, le baigneur, and accounts for it by bathing in the rivers commencing at that time of year. He calls Saint Agrippina by the double name of Agrippina-Koupalnitsa, which he says is given to keep up the claims of Koupalo, though virtually supplanted by the other.

MR. URBAN, Cork, April 8. (Continued from Vol. XIX. p. 592.)

But, passing lightly over these and some other inadvertencies of little mo

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ment, my attention is more seriously challenged at page 243 of the same volume, where M. D'Aubigné, after proudly dwelling on the salutary fruits of the Reformation, introduced and followed by some rhetorical flourishes not in the best taste, proceeds and says, "Thus everything progressed, arts, literature, purity of worship, and the minds of prince and people.' In the delineation of history, however, I cannot discover much to corroborate these comprehensive vauntings. It surely is not in the character of our Henry, or his court, nor in that of his successors and their agents of reform, as revealed to us in the dark exposures of Mr. Fraser Tytler, from documentary evidence, (State Papers, vol. ii.) and Dr. Taylor; nor again, in Scotland, as depicted by the former historian, (History of Scotland, vol. vi. p. 221 and p. 353,) or antecedently by Robertson, (vol. i. p. 366.) Danish prince Christiern II. will hardly sustain M. D'Aubigné's encomium, nor will Albert of Brandenberg, Ulrich of Wirtemberg, or Philip of Hesse, to whom, respectively, their dominions were principally indebted for the establishment of Lutheranism. Shortly after, we encounter Henry the Fourth of France, the most licentious of men, whose incontinence prodigieuse is the theme of every annalist, while marching in front of reform, its hero and protagonist. Still, he was not chargeable with the abominations of his Catholic predecessor, for whose "mignons fraisés," or, as qualified by Henry while applauding the assassination of one of them, St. Mesgrin, by the Duke of Guise, (Journal de Henri III. p. 21, tome 6) "mignons de couchette,' we unhappily meet a parallel in the favourites of his contemporary, our James, whom the Béarnais, in his correspondence with the President Jeannin, a work recommended by Lord Chesterfield to his son, 31 May, 1752, (Leyde, Elzevir, 1659, 12mo.) designates, in 1608, by an unutterable epithet. The imputation, charitably denied by Dr. Lingard, has unfortunately derived strength from the reGENT. MAG. VOL. XX.

cent disclosures of the British Museum and State Paper Office (Von Raumer's Beiträge zur neuren Geschichte aus Brittische Museum, Erster Band); and the fact of his presence at the marriage of the infamous Somerset, only to be accounted for, according to Mr. Mackay, (Popular Delusions, vol. ii. p. 235,) by the fear of betrayal from his accomplice in guilt, is by no means in his favour. But the matter repels discussion; and, as Tacitus

states of the laws of the Germans on

such subjects, (Germania, cap. xii.) "6 flagitia abscondi oportet,"-words, I observe, to which Montesquieu, (Esprit des Lois, xxx. 19) attaches a less depraved construction. See, however, the note of Lipsius on the passage; it is an honourable defence of Germanic virtue, and strong in the expression of his own abhorrence of the corruption. An able review of Mr. Jesse's Memoirs of the Stuarts, in the Gent. Mag. for February 1840, is well worth consulting relative to James.

Far, indeed, was that age from M. D'Aubigné's representation, and most profligate as well as unprincipled in its emergent characters, both Protestants and Catholics. The massacre of St. Bartholomew forms, it is true, a terrible exception; but Philip II. was not more odious than Henry VIII. or Christiern II. monsters in robes of royalty, and no court could be more deeply sunk in debasement than that of James, where we are assured by an eminent contemporary, Sir John Harrington, that drunkenness was not an unfrequent indulgence even with females of the first class. (Nugæ Antiquæ, Park's edition, vol. i. p. 349.) Although in the reign of Henry VIII. there were on our statute-book only fourteen or fifteen capital offences, which, under George III. exceeded one hundred and fifty, the number of executions by the axe or halter, during that tyrant's rule, amounted to seventytwo thousand, and, under Elizabeth, to seventeen thousand six hundred. (See Sir H. Cavendish's Parliamentary Debates of 27th November, 1770.) The History of England, according to Voltaire, should be written by the executioner. And to the delusion of witchcraft, &c. the sacrifices throughout the Christian world, still more accumulated, we are assured by Mr. Mackay, (vol. ii. p. 192,) in Protestant

E

than Catholic states, surpassed in sanguinary effusion even the holocausts of the Inquisition. Well may both sides have adopted the song of the furies of the guillotine, which so often rung in my ears during 1793 and 1794. "Du sang, du sang! il faut du sang; Versons à boire à la machine : Pour abreuver la guillotine, Il faut du sang, du sang." See also Chandler's American Trials, (vol. i.)

There would, in fact, seem to have existed rather a rivalry of evil than of good between the variant sects of that period; and nothing can less bear the test of history than the arrogated moral superiority of Protestant sovereigns or people. On this subject I can advance testimony which the marked favour manifested by M. D'Aubigné for its source, should powerfully weigh with him. At page 241 of his third volume, the Arnauld family, so prominent in the annals of Port-Royal, is mentioned in terms of highest praise, and complacently, though most untruly, aggregated to the abettors of reform, in our controvertist's sense of the word. The chief of the name in talent, celebrity, and influence, was, beyond doubt, the younger Antoine, distinguished, consequently, kar' ¿¿oxηv kaì ëμpaow, as "Le Grand Arnauld," who, in his "Apologie pour les Catholiques contre les Faussetés de M. Jurieu," vol. ii. p. 332, (edit. 1682, in 12mo.) thus expresses his view of the question. "Cette première ferveur apparente, dont ces prétendus réformateurs tâchaient d'éblouir le monde, s'est bientôt évanouie. Dieu a renouvellé si visiblement depuis ce temps - là son esprit de grâce et de sainteté en un grand nombre de personnes de l'Eglise Catholique, qu'il ne faut que comparer ces deux Eglises, pour juger sans peine qui est celle qui a plus de marques d'être la véritable Epouse du Fils de Dieu, où réside son esprit, et où il répand ses grâces.' This is the evidence of a witness invoked by M. D'Aubigné, as above cited, on his own side. Of Jurieu's reply (Esprit de M. Arnauld,) I shall only notice that at p. 382, tome ii. in enumerating those Protestants, whose deserts and sanctity would entitle them to the beatification conferred for their merits and piety on Catholics, the foremost on his list

Elizabeth.

is our virgin queen, "Nous ferions aussi un gros catalogue de Saints, si nous voulions le composer de tous les honnestes gens, reconnus pour tels, qui ont été de notre parti. Nous y mettrions la reine Elizabet d'Angleterre," &c. are his words. "Ab una disce omnes." And Jurieu himself, in his "Avis aux protestans," which precedes his Préjugés Legitimes contre le Papisme," (Amster. 1685, 12mo.) acknowledges, "que le plus grand de tous les maux des Protestans de l'Europe, c'est leur extrême corruption." At this day, however unjustly, the English Government is considered on the Continent as destitute of all principle; but for the people, the emphatically Protestant people of England, can imagination form a more hideous picture of corruption, than that exhibited in the parliamentary reports, more especially in those by Lord Ashley? Let it be placed in parallel with the description presented to us by Mr. Borrow, the Bible Society's chosen missionary, of the Spanish people, the most Catholic in Europe, and yet, in the delineation of this irrefragable authority, the purest and noblest, notwithstanding the constant misrule, civil and political, of the country. And, if ignorance of the Bible be a reproach to the one, do we find it better understood by the other, who reckon Goliath and Pontius Pilate among the disciples of our Lord? Nor should it be forgotten, that to Spain we owe the FIRST Christian edition of the Old Testament in the original Hebrew, with the Chaldee paraphrase of the Pentateuch, and the FIRST IMPRESSIONS of the Septuagint and New Testament in Greek. I may add, that in whatever light we view Mr. Borrow's fitness for a Bible-delegate, his intimate knowledge of the Spanish people cannot be contested; and, guided by the scriptural maxim, that the tree is to be judged by its fruit, we must pronounce his expressed hatred of their religion self-refuted in its source by his testimony to their virtues. Of his Bible in Spain, it cannot, indeed, be predicated, as Fontenelle declared of the Jesuit Missionaries' collection, "Les Lettres Edifiantes"-that "no publication had ever so well sustained its title," a testimony confirmed by

general concurrence, in contradiction to Mr. Macaulay's unjust depreciation of these records of the great order's labours. (Essays, vol. i. article Machiavelli.)

As for the advance in arts and literature here assumed, the delusive paralogism," post hoc, ergo ob hoc," is with reckless confidence wielded; for the intellectual movement had preceded the Reformation, which, like the French Revolution, for some time at least, rather impeded than accelerated the progress of rational improvement; and the impulse of civilization in every sense was far more extensively felt in France and Italy than in England, or any other seat of reform. The press was, of course, its quickening organ; but, in England, during that whole century, not a single citable classic, scarcely the respectable impression of even an English volume, was produced; and the records of bibliography will demonstrate, that the fruits of the press were considerably more numerous from Venice, Paris, and Lyons, only three catholic cities, than from the collective efforts of Protestant Europe. Mr. Hallam also expresses his surprise at finding that, even on theological subjects, the number of publications preponderated on the Catholic side. See Panzer's Annales Typographici, 1793-1803, eleven volumes 4to. with Fred. Ad. Ebert's Allgemeines Bibliographisches Lexicon, Leipsic, 1821 1830, 2 vols. 4to. and Hallam's Literary History of Sixteenth and Seventeenth centuries, vol. ii. p. 206.

And, if we extend the comparison, as thus defied, to the other depart ments of civilization, can a competition be for a moment sustained in painting, statuary, architecture, or music? Some misgivings, indeed, escape M. D'Aubigné on this rivalry. "Let Roman Catholicism," he says (vol. iii. p. 239), " 'pride itself on being more favourable than Protestantism to the arts: be it so, Paganism was even more so." He quickly recovers, however, from this forced acknowledgement, and concludes, in respect to music, by asserting, "that the impulse communicated to it at the period of the Reformation has more recently produced those noble oratorios, which have carried the art to its highest point of attainment.” The natural in

ference from this bold assertion would be, that to Protestantism sacred music was most, if not exclusively, indebted; while on the contrary, it was from the sphere of Catholicity that the alleged impulse proceeded, and there, too, has its subsequent influence been ever most felt; for, with the reserve of Handel, the family of Bach, and very few more, it would be difficult to discover a name of first distinction in the opposite ranks. Glück may have been born of Protestant parents; but he passed his whole professional life with Catholics, who, as I have heard some of his friends affirm, always considered him as of their body; and every Italian composer, from Palestrina, the "Musica Princeps" of the sixteenth century, to Rossini of our own day, was, as might be expected, a Catholic. And even of the Germans, the most eminent

Haydn, the matchless Haydn, as Dr. Burney (iv. 599) distinguishes him, Mozart, Weber, and Beethoven, all Catholics, are surely unsurpassed in emulation of merit. As the undeniable result of relative celebrity in the arts, the Catholics, in this and other branches, will be found to outnumber their opponents fourfold at least. And, for those hymns, of which, with their accompanying chaunt, the composition and effects are so lauded, whatever may have been their combined power, it will hardly be urged in comparative influence with the universal admiration and deep pathos of those of Rome, on which the great masters of harmony have, for centuries, exercised their talents. It was not from his native idiom that Göethe selected the hymn, which so sensitively affected poor Gretchen, (the familiar abbreviation of Margaret,) in the cathedral, when the Evil Spirit, "Bözer Geist," impressed on her mind her contrasted feelings, on hearing this pious effusion, "the Dies Iræ," in her days of former innocence and actual guilt, (Faust, p. 225, ed. Tübingen, 1825). The "Stabat Mater" of Rossini excites at this moment the enthusiastic applause of the musical world; and the touching canticle has ever been a theme of predilection and achievement of renown to the most eminent professors of the art-to Palestrina, to Pergolesi, who, however, lived not to terminate his work,