As

quarter, was slain.* The Confederates lous prelate, who had doubted whether he were every day reduced to depend more and could open the letter from the heretic king, more on the army of O'Nial, a contingency or enter into negotiations with his heretic not unwelcome to the nuncio, till he found son, inclines to support a plan which O'Nial that their fear and dislike of the general of was meditating of a league with the bitter Ulster made them more than ever anxious Scotch Presbyterians of Ulster. Somewhat to relieve themselves from the burden of the later, however, he is of opinion that the alwar. Their prospects of success in negotia-liance with heretics cannot be justified even tion were increased by the growing discon- by the object of hostility to Ormond. Again, tent of the Presbyterians and the moderate we hear of constant negotiations with Winparty in England and Scotland, with the ter Grant (Dr. Leybourne), the queen's rising dominion of the Independents founded agent in Ireland, whom he in vain solicits to on the support of the army. Ormond, the procure the appointment of a Catholic viceconstant object of the nuncio's deepest ha- roy; the scheme of a foreign protectorate tred, arrived in Paris to support the royal is renewed, and money is eagerly and usecause; and early in 1648, Inchiquin himself, lessly demanded from Rome. He loses by either from disinclination to extreme mea- degrees all hopes from the assembly, and sures, or from resentment against Lord Lisle, meditates recourse once more to the thunthe parliamentary lord-lieutenant, who had ders of the church and to O'Nial. attempted without success to supersede him The truce with Inchiquin, which soon in his command, declared once more for the followed, decided the nuncio's course. king, and at the same time protested against in the case of the treaty of 1646, he sumthe continuance of the nuncio's power. moned a council of bishops, and procured Among the bishops, however, he had recently from fourteen of them a condemnation of acquired an addition of strength. On his ar- the truce, and a conditional power to exrival in Ireland, he had found thirteen vacant communicate the favourers of it in conjuncsees, and had recommended candidates for tion with four specified bishops, or in default appointment by the pope, who were selected of their attendance, with four to be selected for their support of the ultra-Catholic cause, by himself. About the 10th of May he left and for their devoted obedience to Rome. Kilkenny secretly, and joined O'Nial, who At the end of 1647, the nominations arrived lay with a small army at Maryborough in from Rome, for the most part in pursuance fear of an attack from the combined forces of his advice, although the Archbishopric of of Preston and Inchiquin. His next halting Tuam was given to de Burgh, a moderate place was Athlone, where, on the refusal of prelate who was attached to the policy of the four authorized bishops to join him, he Clanricarde, the chief of his name. The summoned four of his partisans in their room, new bishops were admitted to vote in right and by their concurrence published a solemn of their sees, though Muskerry observed to excommunication against the author of the the Bishop of Ross, the only candidate in truce, and laid all parts of the kingdom, whose favour the recommendation of the where it should be accepted, under an intersupreme council had not been obtained, that dict. He then retired to Galway, where he the pope of his own authority could confer remained for several months, observing the no temporal barony in Ireland, and, therefore, course of affairs. At first he thought that no seat in the legislature. For the most his measures had been successful-2000 part they supported the nuncio's measures, zealous Catholics deserted from Preston to and they had a principal part in delaying the join the orthodox army of O'Nial; many negotiations for peace.

But the resistance of the war party was now hopeless. We find Rinuccini still actively intriguing, but without rational hope or distinct plan. At one time the scrupu

cities and individuals applied submissively to be relieved from the interdict; and as he states, probably with some exaggeration, the great body of the clergy, and three-fourths of the population, still adhered to his cause. But all the strength lay with the minority, There is some strange confusion as to the death of Colkitto. In a document headed 'Relazione del- and there was a division among the bishops, la battaglia di Trim (Dungan Hill) fra l' esercito which was fatal to his claim wielding the Cattolico ed Inglese,' purporting to be enclosed in whole authority of the churc The couna letter to Cardinal Panzirolo, dated 29th of August, cil forbade obedience to the excommunica1647, the death of Alexander Macdonnell, who was

then alive, and had not been engaged in the battle, tion, and they were supported in their reis related. It is again described in nearly the same sistance by eight bishops, by some of the words in an account of the battle of Knocknoness, monastic orders, and by the canon lawyers, where he really fell, dated 26th of November. The who had been consulted in anticipation of former paper was probably written some time after the event. the ostensible date, by a secretary or other attendIt was alleged that the excomant of the nuncio. munication and interdict were void, as found

ed on civil matters, as having been published hopeless. Ormond had resumed the govwithout the consent of the delegated bish-ernment with the concurrence of almost ops, and as exceeding the powers of a nun- every party, though O'Nial still held aloof, cio, except by express authority from the and soon afterwards joined the English in pope, or by the additional commission of a despair. Even the northern Scotch were legate a latere, to which Rinuccini could not converted to royalism, though it naturally pretend. An appeal to Rome was tendered appeared that they hated the papists and to him, with a demand that he would sus- malignants more than they loved the king; pend the sentence till a decision could be and Sir Charles Coote, who commanded for obtained but the suspension was haughtily the parliament in Connaught, declared his refused, and all friendly intercourse broken disapprobation of the execution of Charles. off. In the course of the discussion the The intimation of the lord-lieutenant that Archbishop of Tuam demanded to see the the nuncio must leave the kingdom, was terms of the bull from which the nuncio soon followed by his departure. He sailed claimed his authority. Ego non ostendam,' from Galway in the same vessel which had was the answer; Et ego,' replied the arch- brought him to Ireland, and arrived safely in bishop, 'non obediam. We cannot pretend Normandy, where he found that France was to a confident opinion as to the question of in universal confusion from the commencing ecclesiastical law. The bull by which troubles of the war of the Fronde. His inRinuccini was appointed is voluminous and terviews with the disaffected chiefs, with apparently liberal in its powers, but much Longueville in Normandy, and Condé at of the contents have the appearance of what Dijon, seemed to have roused the ancient lawyers call common forms, and we can find suspicion of Mazarine, and Bagni again in it no authority to excommunicate or im- looked with an evil eye on the neighbourhood pose interdicts except in connection with of a possible successor. On his arrival in the exercise of ordinary jurisdiction over Rome, he was, according to some writers, individuals or bodies in salutem animarum. ordered to confine himself to his diocese, There is, however, a clause which expressly though his present biographer asserts that authorizes the nuncio to act upon the mere he was offered a high post near the person recital of his powers without exhibiting the of the pope, as the reward of his faithful original, and which therefore seems to justify services. Not long afterwards he retired to his refusal to produce them when required Fermo, where he died in 1653. by the archbishop. The result of the appeal The events which followed his departure was a remittal of the sentence to the nuncio showed that he had not been the sole cause for reconsideration, a measure probably of Irish dissension. Thwarted by the clerequivalent to a disapproval of the expediency gy, disobeyed by the factious cities, conof the measure, avoiding a decision on the stantly suspected, insulted and calumniated, question of law. The court of Rome might Ormond struggled in vain to uphold the perhaps, among other motives for evading a cause of Ireland. It is gratifying to rememreversal of the judgment, be influenced by an ber that he placed implicit trust in O'Nial, unwillingness to countenance even indirect- when that gallant chieftain joined him in ly the objections to the sentence arising from consequence of the hostility he met with the illegality of the whole proceeding by from his English allies; but his death, statute law, which in the minds of the lay which soon followed, and that of his chief nobility, and even with some of the clergy, adviser, and successor in command, Ever had weighed more than any arguments Mac Mahon, Bishop of Clogher, who havagainst its canonical validity. From time ing been the ablest assistant of Rinuccini, to time the nuncio had from the first been became for the sake of his country, the irritated by the dislike of foreign jurisdiction faithful ally of Ormond, broke up the army and the reverence for English law, which of Ulster, which had so long been the mainhe found rooted in the minds of Irish states- stay of the war. After the suicidal refusal men; and even though he succeeded in es- of Limerick to admit a garrison from his tablishing a court for ecclesiastical purposes, army, embarrassed by the declarations he was often thwarted with doubts as to the against popery extorted from the young king sovereignty of the pope, and scruples as to in Scotland, and at last excommunicated by an infringement on the deep-rooted loyalty the clergy, the lord-lieutenant retired from to the king, opinions which he can refer to Ireland, in the hope that his deputy, Clanrias grievous and shocking, 'massime acerbe,' carde, might, as a Catholic, be better obeyor cose orribili.' ed. But not even the progress of Cromwell In January the indignation produced by and Ireton could bring the Irish to unity, the trial and death of the king made all at- nor was there now any hope of victory. tempts to separate the new confederates Clanricarde, faithful to the last, kept the war

alive in the west and the north, till, in pur- masses and processions were abolished, and suance of the king's express commands re- priests and monks were hung like banditscalling him from a useless struggle, he made liberaverat animam suam.' Such are terms for himself, and the troops immediate-statesmen of so called principle, and of rely under his command, and was allowed to ligious principle in particular. Yet in comretire to the continent. The subsequent parison with his Protestant contempotreatment of Ireland by the conquerors does raries of the same occupation, the nuncio not belong to our present subject. rises high in our respect and esteem. He Notwithstanding his errors and ill-fortune, had all the bigotry and intolerance of a there is much in Rinuccini's career which is priest, but he had also the activity and not unworthy of respect. We see nothing talents of an Italian: when we think of the to censure in the direction of his wishes to Scotch divines who superintended the mothe absolute triumph of the Catholic cause rals of Charles II., and promised victory to untainted by heretic assistance, nor was he Leslie, and argued about Providence against wrong in his judgment that the confederates the conclusive logic of Cromwell, we are had within themselves sufficient material re- inclined for the time to look upon Rinuccini sources to ensure an unaided victory. His as a wise man, a statesman, and a general. error consisted in obstinate blindness to the In reading the narrative of the war for its community of feeling and interest between intrinsic interest, most men would sympathe Catholic and Protestant aristocracy. thize with the Catholic cause, and regret The leaders of the confederacy, Muskerry, its final defeat. An Englishman may pause Mountgarret, Castlehaven, and Taaffe, were before he wishes that Cromwell should have identified by a thousand points of connection failed in subduing Ireland, recollecting the with Ormond, and in the presence of a com- great power which would have accrued to mon enemy were not likely to be kept apart the crown, and which might have afterwards by the single difference of religion. A pru- enabled the Stuarts to crush in the bud the dent statesman would have discovered from opening destinies of England. But there the first the impossibility of entire success: can be but one opinion, that if it could not a reasonable man would at least have ac- be exclusively Protestant, it would have knowledged it after the breaking up of the been better for Ireland itself to become Casiege of Dublin. But the nuncio was, in tholic, while Catholicism was still allied to modern language, a statesman of principle, loyalty. It is unpleasant to remember that so firmly bent on an imaginary object, as to two centuries have done little to increase be incapable of falling back on a practicable the healthiness of her condition, new causes alternative. It was in his power to cement of dissension arising where old divisions a league, which for the time could have have grown over with time. The old Irish driven all invaders into the sea, which and the old English have become nearly inmight possibly have changed the fate of distinguishable, but the fury of religious England, and, at the worst, might have hatred has not abated, and the power of the yielded on favourable conditions. The Ca- priesthood has been strengthened. In the tholics, forming the bulk of its strength, time of Charles I. the landed gentry and the would have been too formidable for neglect, great nobility were for the most part of the and could have forcibly claimed the grati- religion of the people, and, sharing their tude of their allies. But Protestants would feelings, had it in their power to mitigate have been allowed to ring church bells in their virulence. The land is now in the Dublin, and private masses would have hands of Protestants, whose loyalty may be been said in houses, and monks might have undoubted, but who can no longer secure walked beyond their cloisters, unaccompa- the adherence of their dependants. It is nied and out of costume: The image of not improbable that the people may still reorder and pomp in the nuncio's mind would tain something of their old feeling of athave been disturbed, his conscience would tachment to the crown; but under our have accused him of partaking in the un-modern constitution the crown has ceased to clean thing. He preferred to accomplish all be a substantive power, though its share in at once without reference to expediency, the government is weighty. On the other and consequently without hope of durabili- hand, the feeling of England has become ty. Because he had held ever aloof from friendly to the people of Ireland, on whom heretics; because he had taught Waterford the change may perhaps produce a benefiand Galway to imitate the splendour of cial effect, if it is ever suffered to penetrate Italian processions; because he had planted to their knowledge. A more valuable sethe tree of Catholicism in full leaf and flower curity against the worst of evils for Ireland as he loved to see it, he felt sorrow without is the great increase of the relative strength remorse when it withered and died, when of the imperial government. The thorough

amalgamation of England and Scotland, and or it takes the shape of a regular scientific exposithe great development in modern times of tion, which annihilates all that is living and charthe available resources of civilized states, acteristic, and commands a sort of general interest has made Ireland, notwithstanding the in- only when something external and accidental interferes to modify the action of the scientific princrease of its population, more incapable of ciple. In works of this kind, whatever is purely open opposition than it was in the seven-human appears as a disturbing element, and, where teenth century. With peace there is always it cannot be altogether omitted, is only tolerated. hope, though proposed remedies for Irish The individual man, just because in his greatest evils have hitherto been generally based on moments he contains something mysterious and unattainable conditions. When it is pro- unfathomable, is rejected as incompatible with the posed to establish a strong Executive, to ordered rigour of the system; every irregular outsubstitute the Catholic for the Protestant which is purely accidental, and beyond the control burst of vital poetry is inadmissible. Even that church, it would be as easy and as useless of human measurement, and which, were it let to propose at once the results which such alone, might assume a character of sublimity, is measures are intended to accomplish. The often forced to appear on the historical stage as government which should take the first step the result of a plan that, in fact, did not exist till would array against it the majority in Ire-after the victory was gained. In the narrations of land and a great party in England; and if it Herodotus and Thucydides again these opposing was found that the first step was intended as elements interpenetrate one another, and are essenthe foundation of the second, the indignation struggle for all that makes human existence valuatially one. Men are placed before us in earnest of the remaining population of both coun-ble and forces the heart of man to feel strongly for tries would swell the opposition to overflow-man; and this living centre of interest, amid all ing. We by no means here intimate that the formal machinery of military circumstance, is either measure is desirable. It is enough, with the example of Rinuccini before us, to advise men to attempt what is practicable.

never lost sight of. I have, accordingly, determined to relate my experience of German history, within my own narrow sphere, simply as 1 experienced it, with every personal feeling and relation as it arose within me or stood before me; and this method of treatment is likely to be satisfactory even to the already well-instructed reader, just in proportion to the disrespect shown to everything merely personal by the modern historians. I have Erin-no inclination, of course, to detract from the high merits of those who have treated these matters

ART. II.--Was ich erlebte: aus der nerung niedergeschrieben. (Events of my Life.) Von HEINRICH STEFFENS. 7ter systematically; but the simple narration of a man of letters, who took part in the struggle, when und Ster Band. Breslau. 1843. already advanced in life, will not be without an interest of its own."

HENRY STEFFENS, by birth a Norwegian, now a professor in Berlin, is well known to the literary and scientific world as a natural philosopher, and a novel writer of no vulgar mark. In the present volumes he has given us personal memoirs of his share of the great European movement made by the Germans against Napoleon in the years 1813 and 1814; and the value of the contributions thus made to the history of that important period, cannot, we think, be better expressed than in the following words of

These remarks express a feeling to which not Coleridge only and Carlyle, among recent British spokesmen, have given strong utterance; but which must have been felt, more or less, by almost every person of sentiment in these times who has read or attempted to read modern history. A good battle, well described, now and then may possess a pictorial and an artistical value, even when it wants a true human interest; but a series of battles, minutely described, can have merely a scientific interest to those by whom they are minutely studied; and Generally speaking," says he, "there is no are to the general reader (especially where literary undertaking more difficult than a genuine historical account of the wars of modern times. plans are not supplied) wearisome, and, exSince the art of war has become a regular science, cept as an external result, valueless. Most the narration of wars assumes a character only too cordially, therefore, do we agree with the like the exposition of a fixed system; and as the professor as to the value of merely personal battles themselves, whatever motives may influ- details as a supplement to the ponderous ence them, are at bottom combats of military prin- military and diplomatic records of modern ciples rather than of moral agents; so the account history; and there is no English reader of of them is apt to reduce itself to a mere dry detail Alison's ninth volume of European Histoof marches and counter-marches, of advancing and

the author himself:

retreating armies, of the quantity of ammunition ta- ry'-not to speak of German-who will ken, and the number (often not at all to be depended not willingly concede to Steffens the old on) of killed, and wounded, and taken prisoners: man's privilege of talking copiously about

เ

himself, when himself is merely the intro- much of the purely human and individual ducer of such names as Gneisenau, and comes here gallantly and triumphantly into Scharnhorst, Marshal Blücher, and the Ba- the foreground, casting not court and cabiron von Stein. net merely, but even diplomacy and tactics, The two volumes which contain these strangely into the shade; inspiring them, patriotic reminiscences are the seventh and at least, with a poetic soul that does not bethe eighth of a series, to which our readers long to them, and dressing them in a free have been already (No. Ixi.) introduced. and natural garb that seems borrowed rather When noticing the first six volumes, we from the pages of Homer than from the Warpurposely eschewed all matter of a political office of a modern ministry. As in the stout nature, and confined ourselves, for the sake conflicts of the Iliad,' the strong Dioof unity, to a few gleanings of literary par- mede,' and the 'lusty-roaring (Bony ayabos) ticulars, such as we thought might be inter- Menelaus,' the delicate Aphrodite, and the esting to the student of German literature. furious Ares, gods with mortals in one subIn the present supplementary notice we lime fray struggle face to face and hand to shall, for the same reason, reverse the pro- hand, with all the freedom of a school-boy cedure, and, excluding the literary and phi- scuffle, unconscious of rank and file, and of losophical passages, confine ourselves to all the perplexing detail of tactics and strawhat is purely political and patriotic; mili- tegics; so the hot hussar, Marshal Blütary we can hardly say, for the professor, cher, the old man with a young heart; the with an instinct of good sense which does glowing poet, Körner, with the sword in one him credit, in these pages systematically hand, and the lyre in the other; Fichte, the avoids giving any opinion on matters which philosopher of the iron will, and Jahn, the his speculative genius never fitted him to white-bearded prophet of gymnastics and understand. The purely military reader, Germanism, all come forward here, in the therefore, will expect nothing from the broad fullness and intense energy of their 'Erlebtes: to him Clausewitz, and other personal character, fighting as free men, not sources, are open; while, on the other hand, as professional soldiers--a group of most those who love from the side-glimpses and motley consistence, and most marked indichance-aspects of war, which the forma! viduality, bound together for a season by historian ignores, to supplement their ideas, the strength of one common feeling-the not of military science, but of human nature, feeling of love to fatherland and hatred of will find in the warlike professor's reminis- Napoleon. It is in vain, therefore, that a cences some food convenient for them. At historian shall describe the liberation war in the same time we are forced, as honest the same fashion that so many other wars of critics, to repeat here the general censure ancient and modern times may be described, which we already passed on the previous by a detailed account of the campaign, and volumes, Es ist breit! gar zu breit!' a skilful exhibition of the military moveWhen will the Germans learn to select and ments. These form the principal matter in to arrange their materials, and to bring them many wars, and therefore, may justly claim within the compass of an ordinary English the principal place in the historian's narrareader's patience? There are some of Tin- tion; but in the liberation war, the moral toretto's pictures at Venice, where whole soul and popular character are the principal walls are so figured over with the swift im- thing; and whoever has not known and pressions of a quick fancy and a ready hand, valued this element, whoever has not brought that the spectator for very multitude of ob- it dramatically and prominently forward, has jects can literally see nothing. Thus Stef- gilded the skeleton of the matter only, and fens wearies the ear with a continuous hum brought forth a dead book. We make these of small voices till it becomes utterly unfit remarks here to show more distinctly the to receive a distinct notice of a truly strong proper value of such personal memoirs as and heroic articulation. This voluminosity, those of Steffens, Arndt, Varnhagen, &c., in however, is a vice not so much of Steffens, regard to a war of this kind, even when as of Germany; and we must even bear they furnish us with such merely incidental with it, on condition that those Germans gleanings, and fragmentary personal notices, who choose to indulge themselves in it will as those which we can gather from the preat the same time supply the truly German sent work. There is, no author who furbook-virtue, which is its antidote, an accu-nishes us with fewer tangible and available rate and comprehensive index. independent facts of the war, than Henry When we fix our eye on the war of 1813, Steffens; but there is none, if we except in Germany, the first thing that strikes us is Arndt, in whom its inspiration glows more its singularly popular, and because popular, fervidly, who may be regarded as personal character. It is remarkable how exponent of that moral power which God