Editor. Among them we find, Archbishop Leighton, Hooker, Barrow, Dr. Owen, Bishop Butler, Howe, Charnock, Bates, Archbishop Usher, Bishops Jewel, Hooper, Hall, Hopkins, Jeremy Taylor, Sanderson, and Reynolds, John Bradford, Calvin, Beza, Luther, Witsius, Flavel, Gurnall, Maclaurin, Traill, Adam, Watts, Doddridge, Robert Hall, Booth, Dwight, Bridge, Wardlaw, Hervey, Cecil, Erskine, Romaine, Newton, &c. Such as lection will be its own recommendation; and we cannot doubt that it will realize the design of the Editors by its extensive usefulness.

Still, these various libraries of religious knowledge must be considered as expedients better adapted to diffuse, than to advance "sacred science; as fitted to please and benefit religious readers, rather than to command the attention, and to meet the moral wants of the large proportion to whom theology is distasteful and religion itself an enigma. With the intelligent and cultivated sceptic, the high-church theologian has little chance of success, beyond that of compelling his recognition of the historic evidence of Christianity. As regards the substance of religion, his own views are too obscure, dubious, and perplexed to allow of his exhibiting the truth in its genuine simplicity and force. On the other hand, the evangelical theologian, identifying his more Scriptural views with a technical phraseology which imparts as much obscurity to his expressions as clouds the doctrines of the other, fails, for a different reason, of conveying the adequate representation of the truth to those who have not been trained in the same school. But what are we doing, if religious knowledge is not forcing for itself new channels, and adapting itself to the new circumstances of society;-if it is not throwing off, with all other kinds of knowledge, the dead and worn out forms of truth, and clothing itself with purer colours, and putting forth a new energy;-if it is not subduing all other kinds of knowledge to itself, permeating our literature, rather than maintaining the distinctness of an incongruous and immiscible element, and vindicating the claims of theology-too long the mere pastime of divines-to the character of the most certain, as well as the most sacred of sciences?

Art. VI. Calabria, during a Military Residence of Three Years: in a Series of Letters, by a General Officer of the French Army. From the original MS. Small 8vo. pp. xvi. 360. Price 10s. 6d. London. 1832.

IT is a curious circumstance', remarks Dr. M'Crie, that the 'first gleam of light at the revival of letters, shone on that ' remote spot of Italy where the Vaudois had found an asylum’*.

* M Crie's Reformation in Italy, p. 4.

That spot was Calabria. Petrarch first acquired a knowledge of the Greek tongue from Barlaam, a Calabrian monk; and when the Reformation dawned on Italy, the Waldensian colony, founded by emigrants from the Cottian Alps, and increased by fugitives from Piedmont and France, where a fierce persecution raged against those early Protestants, still continued to flourish. At length, after subsisting for nearly two centuries, it was basely and barbarously exterminated.' The germ of Christian civilization was thus destroyed, which might have converted the Calabrian wilds into the abodes of peaceful industry and independence. What is Calabria now? According to the present Writer, 'a Paradise abandoned to demons',-the abode of a barbarous and depressed peasantry, still groaning under the feudal yoke, and the haunt of the most desperate and ferocious brigands that ever infested society. The only exception seems to be afforded by the descendants of Albanian settlers, who, like the Waldensian emigrants, sought in these mountains an asylum from tyranny. In the fifteenth century, a great number of Greek families, fleeing from the persecutions to which they were subjected after the death of Scanderbeg, Prince of Albania, took refuge in the kingdom of Naples, and principally in Calabria, where the Government encouraged them to settle, by grants of forest land.

The descendants of these refugees have preserved to this day the manners, language, and religion of their country, as also their original costume, which produces a remarkably agreeable effect by its richness and elegance. They are industrious, hospitable, and far from being addicted to brigandage. They know how to make themselves respected by the ferocious hordes that surround them, and against whom they are always on their guard. The harmony and peace which prevail among them, might serve as a model for the country in which they have found an asylum.' p. 151.

We are not informed whether the canton of Rogliano (near Cosenza) is peopled by these Albanian Greeks, which is thus described:

The environs of Rogliano are splendidly beautiful at this season. The land rising with a gradual ascent to the top of that vast platform, the Syla, presents on all sides a magnificent view. The mountains, arrayed in verdure of different tints, exhibit numberless villages and country seats, which give a most animated appearance to this fine region. It would be difficult to find in any country a canton better peopled, more fertile, and better cultivated, than this. It forms a happy exception to the rest of Calabria. p. 155.

The explanation of the phenomenon is not supplied. Of the general aspect and condition of these provinces, we have the following description :

Nature has done every thing for this country; but the vices of the government have marred its prosperity for many ages. The condition

of the peasants is most wretched: property is extremely disproportioned, there being in Calabria very few persons of moderate incomes. Small proprietors are very rarely to be met with, and in no country is there a more sudden transition from dire indigence to superabundant wealth. The consequence is, that total want of emulation which is everywhere to be observed. The climate and the soil do more than half the work, and the hand of man defeats the execution of the remainder. Thus it happens, that productions of every kind are at this day, in Calabria, only the spontaneous gifts of Nature without any aid from art.

With the exception of a few cities, and some towns that are regularly built, all the other frequented places present the most miserable and disgusting appearance. The whole interior of their houses is a mass of revolting filth. The pigs live familiarly with the inmates, and it often happens that infants in the cradle are devoured by them. These animals are of a particular species, and quite black: they are so numerous, that they obstruct all the streets and the approach to every house.

When we consider that ancient Greece has been, of all countries in the universe, the best peopled, the most civilized, and the best cultivated, it is impossible, in the present day, not to deplore the lot of so fine a country as this, condemned for ages to see itself perishing through each succeeding year, and becoming the abode of misery and pestilence. The rivers desolate the lands on which they border, and leaving in their course a noxious deposition of mud, infect a great part of the country, so that the inhabitants are obliged to abandon their ancient possessions. Earthquakes have also caused many melancholy changes. Every thing bears testimony to the cruel ravages occasioned by that of 1783. This frightful catastrophe, which has altered the aspect of these countries in an inconceivable manner, was first announced by the most appalling indications. Close, compact, and immoveable mists seemed to hang heavily over the earth: in some places, the atmosphere appeared red-hot, so that it was every moment expected it would burst out in flames: the water of the rivers assumed an ashy and turbid colour, while a suffocating stench of sulphur diffused itself around. The violent shocks which were repeated at several intervals from the 5th of February to the 28th of May, destroyed the greater part of the buildings of further Calabria. The number of inhabitants who were crushed under the ruins of their houses, or who perished on the strands of Scylla, was estimated at about 50,000. The rivers, arrested in their course by the fall of mountains, became so many infected lakes, corrupting the air in all directions. Houses, trees, and large fields were hurried down together to the bottom of deep glens, without being separated by the shock;-in short, all the extraordinary calamities and changes which can be effected by earthquakes, were beheld at this deplorable period, under the various forms which characterised them.

After such convulsions of nature, it will not appear extraordinary that Calabria retains but few monuments which attest its grandeur and opulence as a colony founded by the ancient Greeks. The splendid and luxurious Sybaris was entirely destroyed by the Crotonians, who turned the course of two rivers upon the site which this superb city

occupied. The celebrated Crotona, ravaged and razed in its turn, is at this day nothing better than a sorry little hamlet, preserving in its vicinity, as the only memorial of its ancient grandeur, a single column of the temple of Juno Lacinia. Gerace, built on the ruins of the ancient Locri, has some remains which shew how vast must have been the extent of a republic that was successively pillaged by every people it hastened to receive. But if the remains of antiquity spread over this classic land could have miraculously escaped the destroying hand of time, and the shocks of earthquakes, they must still have perished through the ignorance and barbarism of the Calabrians.' pp. 134-9.

So complete has been the destruction of Sybaris, that not a trace of that magnificent and voluptuous capital is now remaining; so that, despite of the historical certainty of its site, to an ordinary observer, we are told, its existence in such a place might appear a physical impossibility. The two rivers (Sybaris, now the Cocillo, and Chratis) which at once ornamented and fertilized the plain, have transformed it into a foul marsh, which, during the hot weather, exhales the most pestilential vapours. The surrounding scenery is, however, most beautiful, and that part of the land which is not inundated, produces grain in abundance; while a vast extent of pasture-land is covered, during the winter, with herds and flocks. The whole region is divided between the

Dukes of Cassano and Corigliano.

Calabria is not so completely a terra incognita as the Translator of these Letters imagines; nor is he warranted in affirming, that they contain the only accurate and authentic account of the country now extant.' To say nothing of works in other languages, the Hon. Mr. Craven's "Tour through the Southern Provinces of Naples," published in 1821*, contains a much fuller description of the two Calabrias, than is to be found in the slight, though pleasing and graphic sketches of the present Writer. The chief interest of the volume consists in its affording an insight into the state of the country at the time (1808), and supplying incidental illustrations of the condition and character of the people. It must be borne in mind, however, that the Author entered the country under the most unfavourable circumstances possible, as attached to a foreign army detested by the inhabitants, both as invaders and as French. The Writer apologizes for the violent measure of establishing military commissions in all the towns of Calabria, by urging, that it was 'judged necessary, to put down that spirit of brigandage which, being supported by the English, and encouraged by the greater part ' of the inhabitants, caused, day after day, considerable loss to 'the French, and, if not suppressed, must have ended by pro

6

* See Eclectic Review, Second Series, Vol. XVI. p. 385.

ducing a fresh insurrection.' This is a naïve way of expressing, or rather disguising the fact, that a successful guerilla warfare was maintained by the Calabrian mountaineers against the French army; that the English were regarded as allies, while the presence of a strong French force, and the most atrocious severities practised by the military commissions, alone prevented a general insurrection of the inhabitants. Of the nature of the strong measures to which the French Government' had recourse, here is a characteristic specimen.

Another expedient, which totally failed in producing the good effects that were expected to result from it, was the organization of a Civic Guard, in which the officers were composed of the principal proprietors of the soil,-persons naturally interested in preserving the public peace, and in protecting their possessions from the attacks of the brigands, who committed such frequent devastations upon them. It was thought, that they might very effectually serve to maintain order while acting in concert with the French troops. The selection of the men who were to form the several companies, was left to the free discretion of the officers. Afterwards, by a general order, promulgated and posted up through every part of the country, the use of arms was forbidden, under the most severe penalties, to all those who had not enrolled their names under the authority of the Civic Guard. The Calabrians, being in general passionately fond of the chase, now made the strongest professions of attachment to the Government, earnestly soliciting at the same time that they might be permitted to form part of this force. The number, however, being exceedingly limited in each commune, a violent degree of rivalry and contention arose among the parties, and the greatest disorders ensued. On the one side were witnessed arrogance, vexatious annoyance, and abuse of power, for the purpose of destroying personal enemies by charging them with crimes that were to come under the cognizance of the Military Commission; on the other side, vengeance, and a junction with brigands to destroy the property of the denouncing parties.

This conflict of so many vile passions, this inextricable labyrinth of odious intrigues and dark plots, renders the office of the judges of the Military Commission equally painful and embarrassing. The prisons of Cosenza were crowded to such a degree, that an epidemic broke out, which threatened to spread all over the city, and it was therefore thought advisable to diminish the number of inmates, by releasing a considerable body of persons; who, on account of their tender age, appeared to deserve some indulgence. A similar measure being adopted throughout all the prisons of Calabria, thousands of individuals issued forth, who were conducted to Naples in chains, like so many galley-slaves, and escorted by French troops. These young people, the greater part of whom have been prowling about with the brigands, are dispersed through some newly-raised Neapolitan regi ments, from which they will most assuredly seek the very first opportunity to desert, and return armed and equipped to their former course of life.' pp. 46-49.