Abbildungen der Seite
PDF
EPUB

or wealth or reputation might, with impunity, overtop the level of the democracy. The unrelenting people proscribed every superiority, as a thing of dangerous consequence. "The same cautious politics produced the Ostracism of Athens, and the Petalism of Syracuse, and expelled every citizen whose fame or power overtopped the rest.”* Virtue was an object of jealousy; and so susceptible was the prudence of their tyranny, that it instigated them to attack even the honourable distinctions which recompense superior integrity and purity of life; and Aristides was banished for the celebrity of his justice. P. 85-88.

To exhibit a corresponding picture of Roman manners, Mr. H. presents his readers with the observations of a Christian stranger, who might have visited Rome in the first century after our Saviour's ministry on earth:

The door of the house in which he is received, to the distress of every Christian sentiment, is opened by a chained slave. He is conducted to the master of the house, who is at supper, and is invited to take a place at the banquet. Instead of that liberal equality which has been introduced by the general prevalence of the Christian disposition, and which has smoothed the irregularities of society, and rendered persons of a more distinguished opulence and rank attentive to the sensibilities of the poorer and more humble members of their society, he finds the inferior guests studiously reminded of their subordinate condition, removed to a distance from the luxurious table of the master of the feast, and insulted by the offensive coarseness of their entertainment.-During a scene of the grossest gluttony and intemperance, he is opprest, as the spirits of the party become elevated, by the most appalling licentiousness of conversation. A father speaks of the difficulty he had found in persuading his wife to the murder of their new-born infant.§ The young men boast of their successful rapes,|| their perilous adulteries, or their unnatural attachments. Disgusted with these appalling circumstances, the Christian visitor might omit remarking on the unbridled sensuality with which his new companions surrender themselves to the protracted pleasures of the table,¶ as if to eat were the first privilege of existence, and they had artificially increased their appetites, that they might lengthen their capacity of indulgence. Wearied of such society, he retires to his chamber, but not to rest; for his repose is broken by the noise of whips and lashes, and the cries of the chastised slaves, whom the master of some neighbouring mansion is rigorously correcting.**In the morning he prepares to accompany his host to the exhibitions of the Circus. As they are departing from the house, an aged and half-starved slave timidly endeavours to elude their observation; he is detected; his master notices his infirmities, and orders that he should no longer be retained as an unprofitable expense and incumbrance to his household, but should be exposed to die of starvation, in recompense for the labours of his youth.—

HUME'S Essay on the Balance of Power.

Ovid. Amor. lib. i. cap. 6.

Juvenal, 5th Satire.

§ Terence, Heaut., Act. III. Scene 4.

Ib. Eun., Act. III. Scene 5.

To prevent the bad effects of repletion, some used, after supper, to take a vomit : thus Cæsar (accubuit eμeтiêny agebat, i. e. post cœnam vomere volebat, ideoque largius edebat). Cicero, Att. 13. 52. Dejot. 7. Also before supper and at other times, Suet. Vit. 13. Cic. Phil. 41. vomunt, ut edant; edunt, ut vomant, Senec. ad Helv. 9. Even women, after bathing before supper, used to drink wine and throw it up again to sharpen their appetite. Juvenal, 6. 427.

** Seneca mentions, Epistle 122, that, regularly about the third hour of the night, the neighbours of one, who indulges the false refinement of changing night into day, hear the noise of whips and lashes; and, upon inquiry, find that he is then taking an account of the conduct of his servants, and giving them due correction. This is not remarked as an instance of cruelty, but only of disorder, which, even in actions the most usual and methodical, changes the fixed hours that established custom had assigned for them.

The Christian remonstrates against this act of cruelty; he assures his host that not a single individual of his own religion would be guilty of such barbarity even to one of the inferior creatures-to the aged hound, or the drooping war-horseif it had been serviceable to his interests, or his amusements. The heathen cannot comprehend his sentiments. He informs his guest that this is the usual method of disposing of all superannuated domestics; that some masters suffer them to starve to death about their houses; that others leave them to perish of want on an island of the Tiber; that others cast them alive into their preserves to fatten their fish; that, in short, the practice was universal among his countrymen, and adopted without remorse, sanctioned by the example of the illustrious Catot, and one from which, as it was extremely convenient, he could see no reason for departing.—The Christian is silenced;-they proceed to the Theatre. On their way, they pass a company of Patrician youth, one of whom is on the point of exhibiting his dexterity in the use of the broad-sword. A poor wretch, suffering from the deep afflictions of domestic misery, has been bribed, by the offer of a few minæ, to devote himself as the victim of the barbarous experiment, on condition that the necessities of his family should be relieved by the stipulated purchase-money of his murder.-They arrive at the Coliseum.-There is great difficulty in securing situations.-Nearly forty thousand persons are already impatiently assembled. It is a day of extraordinary expectation. Many celebrated gladiators are to be brought on the arena. It is anticipated that some hundreds will be slaughtered in the various conflicts which are appointed to succeed each other in the progress of the entertainment; but a more than usual curiosity and interest is excited for those contests, in which the ill-fated wretches are to be exposed in opposition to the wild beasts of the desert or the forest, as on this occasion the lions and the panthers have been fed on human flesh, for the purpose of sharpening their thirst of blood, and stimulating the keenness of their ferocity.§ Unable to sustain the sight,-while the first victim is expiring, unpitied and unregarded, amid the thunders of acclamation that reward the exertions of his competitor,-the Christian visitor of the heathen capital hastily withdraws himself from the scene of sanguinary festival. He is immediately followed by his host, who ridicules his compassion on the authority of the most approved philosophers, and interrupts his eloquent lamentations over the departure of the ancient virtue and simplicity of the Roman character, by assurances, that the people have not degenerated; that vice may have varied in its form, but not increased in magnitude; that its ratio has been permanent and equal; and that, whatever enormities may have been engendered of power and luxury and refinement, at all events, those ruder ages could never be deserving of regret, during which a supposed pestilence, that appeared to be depopulating the city, was discovered to be effected by the prevalency of the art of poisoning:||—

Suetonius in Vita Claudii—“ Quelques Romains les faisaient jeter tous vivans daus leurs viviers, pour engraisser des murènes."-Mennais states this piece of barbarity, but does not quote his authority.

A sufficient proof of the harsh manner in which slaves were used, "we find," says Potter, Book i. chap. 10, "in the famous Roman Cato, a man celebrated in all ages for his exact observance of the strictest rules of justice. When his servants grew old, and unfit for labour, notwithstanding they had been very faithful and serviceable to him, and bad spent their youth and strength in labouring for him; for all this, when years came upon them, and their strength failed them, he would not be at the expense of maintaining them, but either turned them away, unable to provide for themselves, or let them starve to death in his own family."-The anecdote is from Plutarch.

↑ Ephorion de Chalcide raconte (Apud Athen. lib. iv.) que chez les Romains, on proposait quelquefois cinq mines de récompense à celui qui voudrait souffrir qu'on lui tranchât la tête, en sorte que la somme offerte devait être touchée par les héritiers; et souvent, ajoute le même auteur, plusieurs concurrens se disputaient la mort à ce prix.— Menais, vol. i. p. 380.

This was done by Caligula.

Livy, viii. 18. One hundred and seventy women, among whom were some of the highest rank, were condemned for this crime.

a practice which was so accordant to the morals and sentiments of the people, that the prætor, in a single province, after having capitally punished three thousand persons for the offence, still complained of the increasing number of the accusations.*

In the above sketch of the private morals of the ancient Romans, I have studiously cast a veil over that horrible and undisguised impurity which saturated the whole body of society; which haunted the precincts of their temples; which mingled with their religious rites and festivals; which so frequently made the subject of their conversation and their poetry; which addressed the grossness of the public mind in the signs exhibited in their streets, and in the monuments that defiled their gardens, and of which the images were constantly before the eyes, to pollute and to debase the soul, engraved on the common utensils of daily existence, on their lamps and their vases and their drinking vessels. Pp. 11-19.

Our readers will have already perceived, that in our opinion the Author has ably executed his task; but one sentence we must notice as inaccurate. It occurs, vol. i. p. 193. He speaks of alms as "the only human atonement for the past transgressions of the penitent." This can scarcely be reconciled with the doctrines taught by our Church, not only in her Articles, but in almost every page of her Liturgy. There can be only one atonement for transgressions; and every one who partakes of that will perform "fair deeds of charity" as a part of that practical holiness, without which no man can see the Lord.

ART. IV.-Manual of Public and Private Education, founded on a Discovery, by which a School or Family may teach itself under the Superintendence of the Master or Parent, made, recorded, and promulgated at Madras in 1789-96; published in London 1797, and thence diffused over the World. Eighth Edition, digested and abridged; with an Historical Introduction and Appendix. By ANDREW BELL, D. D. LL. D. F. As. S. F. R. S. Ed. pp. 60. Rivingtons, 1827.

WE come not forward at this period to testify our sense of the merits of Dr. Bell's discovery; he needs not our praise. In every town and hamlet of our land, nay, wherever the English name is known, we might say CIRCUMSPICE, and behold a monument more durable than brass, more eloquent than the happiest eulogy. It is indeed the very importance of the system which induces us to turn aside from works of greater pretension to examine the Manual before us.

What such a Manual ought to be may be expressed in a few words. It is intended for the masters and mistresses, the visitors and superintendents of national schools throughout the country. It ought, therefore, to be cheap, and on this point the moderate price of one shilling forbids us to complain. It should have the principles and

* Livy, lib. xl. cap. 43.

rules of the system in clear and concise language, under a simple arrangement.

Let us now examine Dr. Bell's Manual by this test. We must first observe, that unless some great advantage was to be gained, it was extremely injudicious so to transpose and invert the contents of the seventh edition in this new publication; for it must, for a time at least, confuse the instructor who adopts this revision of his text book, professing to be more compendious and simple. We at once however confess, our main objection to the Manual consists in the abundance of irrelevant matter which it contains. The worthy Doctor, indeed, seems to have anticipated this in one respect, and insists that it is proper that the teacher should know the origin and history of the Institution. Be it so; but could not this have been told at once in a single page? Does not, indeed, the title-page alone contain almost sufficient? But the truth is, there are few pages which do not allude to the subject, and several which are wholly occupied with it. There is, too, far more reference to the claims of Mr. Joseph Lancaster than is necessary for after all, the frontispiece, containing "An extract from the Report of the Madras Asylum, dated the 24th of June, 1796, and published in London 1797," gives the sum and substance of the matter, and is quite conclusive. Again, we have an elaborate investigation of the charge, "that the Madras system has undergone frequent changes!"

We object most seriously to the space which is occupied by eulogies of the Author and his system; and this not merely in a snug appendix or preface, or a modest note, but in the text passim. Take the following:

The true nature and character of this system, as a discovery, are briefly designated in the following extract from a sermon preached before the Society for Promoting Christian Knowledge, at the Anniversary of the Charity Schools, at St. Paul's, by the Dean of Chichester, 1817, now Lord Bishop of Gloucester. In speaking of the Founders of our old charity schools, and comparing a discovery in the intellectual world, as momentous in its consequences as it is humble in its origin, with the grandest and most sublime ever made in the physical world, he says,

"If we do not reproach the philosophers of old times with the ignorance of what a Newton saw and investigated, we must not find fault with those good men for not having forestalled the merits and anticipated the discoveries of a Bell." P. 29.

But in addition to Newton, there are many eminent persons who are produced to illustrate the triumph of the art. In page 58 we find the mischief of Bonaparte and the effects of the system contrasted; viresque acquirit eundo, (as the worthy Doctor himself remarks,) for we discover the system to be the lever of Archimedes, and then a STEAM ENGINE: and, lastly, "by an infallible and irresistible impulse giving motion to the moral and intellectual world."

Nor can we approve of the style in which this book is written; we find far too many hard words; such as 'prime monade, decadary system, monosyllabic and promiscuous reading, unreiterated spelling, preliminary repetition of the initiatory lessons, novum organon, ludus literarius,' &c. &c.: also several Latin quotations. The sense, too, is oftentimes clouded by metaphors, and is constantly interrupted by notes and references to past and even to succeeding pages.

Such are the faults with which we do not hesitate to charge the Manual before us; and we are the more anxious to specify them that they may be corrected; lest by them the shrewd observation and valuable instruction contained in the volume should be rendered less effective. For ourselves, indeed, we conclude that the discoverer of the system of mutual instruction has something more to do before we can allow that, in addition to the inestimable benefit he has conferred upon mankind, he has given a practical tract fit for general circulation and

[merged small][merged small][ocr errors][merged small]

66

MR. EDITOR,-If the following attempt to establish the meaning of the word προσκυνησαι, to worship," as used in St. Matthew, chap. ii. ver. 2, should meet with your approbation, I shall be happy to see it inserted in your valuable publication. I drew it up in the form of a note first, for my own private use, and therefore present it to you in that form, without enlarging or making further comment upon it.

[ocr errors]

(1.) προσκυνησαι αυτώ, to worship him," Received Translation ;"to do him obeisance," Unitarian Version. The word προσκυνέω,

66

I worship," is used in the Sacred Scriptures, and also in profane authors, to signify, as well an act of obeisance or of common courtesy towards men, as an act of religious adoration towards God; but in the latter sense it is principally used by both. So far, then, the Unitarians have a plea for translating the word, in the present instance, as they have done. I admit, too, that there are respectable and learned men, who probably referring for the most part to other commentators that have gone before them, without duly weighing the subject as they might or ought, have too hastily decided upon the predominant acceptation of the word in the Sacred Writings. See Elsley's Annotations on this word, and Beyer's Additamenta to c. 3 of Selden's Syntagmata, p. 45, &c.

[ocr errors]

(2.) The Syriac translation is s "to worship him." Castell gives us for a primary signification of the word segad, "incurvavit se, adorandi causa," he bowed himself for the purpose of worshipping. And the Hebrew root 20 sagad, is used in the Old Testament only for the falling down to God or an idol, in a religious

« ZurückWeiter »