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Our grave correspondent might have seen that by putting the word "Anabaptist" (p. 451) within inverted commas, the writer meant to point out the word as a quotation. A packet has been received from our American Correspondent, who, it is hoped, will receive a letter from the Editor before he reads this acknowledgment. THE Monthly Repository. No. CCXXXVIII.] OCTOBER, 1825. [Vol. XX. On the Migration of Nations, the Crusades, and the Middle Ages. HE new system of social constiof Europe and Asia, and brought in by a fresh race of people on the ruins of the eastern empire, had now, during the space of nearly seren centuries, enjoyed the opportunity of displaying itself on another and greater theatre, in new relations, of developing itself in all its modes and varieties, and of passing through every different form and alternation. The posterity of the Vandals, Suevi, Alani, Goths, Franks, Burgundians, and of many others, were at length naturalized on the soil which their ancestors had entered, sword in hand; when the spirit of migration and of rapine, which had brought them into this new country, awoke in the course of the eleventh century in another form and on a different occasion. Europe requited on the south west of Asia, the swarms poured out, and the ravages inflicted, 700 years previously, by the north of that portion of the globe, but with very dissimilar fortune; for as many streams of blood as it had cost the barbarians to found perpetual dynasties in Europe, so many did their Christian children expend on the conquest of some towns and castles in Syria, that in two hundred years were to be lost for ever. The folly and madness which produced the enterprise of the crusades, and the deeds of violence which accompanied its execution, may not perhaps invite to contemplation the eye whose horizon is bounded by what is present. But if we consider these events in connexion with the ages that preceded and those which followed, they will appear too natural in their origin to excite our astonishment, and too beneficial in their results not to convert our displeasure into an entirely different feeling. If we look at its causes, this expedition of the Christians to the Holy Land is such a natural, and even necessary production of its time, that an utterly uninstructed person, VOL. XX. 4 E with the historical premises placed If we regard its effects, we shall recognize it as the first perceptible step by means of which superstition herself began to ameliorate the evil she had so long occasioned; and there is perhaps no historical problem more clearly solved by time than this, none which the genius who spins the threads of the world's history has more satisfactorily vindicated to our reason. Out of the unnatural and enervating rest, into which old Rome plunged all the nations whom she oppressed as mistress; out of the effeininate slavery, in which she smothered the most effective energies of a numerous world, we see the human race emerging into the lawless, stormy freedom of the middle ages, in order at length to rest in the happy medium between two extremes, and advantageously to unite freedom with order, rest with activity, and variety with system. It can, indeed, scarcely be a question, whether the happy state we now enjoy (the approach of which at least we can perceive with certainty) is to be considered as gain, even when compared with the most flourishing situation of mankind at any former time; and whether we have really improved on the fairest ages of Rome and Greece. Greece and Rome could at the best give birth_but_to excellent Romans, excellent Greeks-these nations at their brightest epochs never elevated themselves to excellent men. The whole world, beyond Greece, was, to the Athenian, a barbarous waste; and we know that he frequently found even her general interests clash with his. The Romans were punished by their own arm for having left on the vast-extended theatre of their dominion nothing but Roman citizens ana Roman slaves. None of our states has a Roman citizenship to bestow, and, therefore, do we possess a good that no Roman, remaining such, could dare to know; and we hold it from a only developes itself by foreign aid; and to the chance of discoveries, the tardy offspring of time and accident. How often will the one plant bloom and fade, before the other has once attained maturity! How difficult therefore must it be for states to await the growth of knowledge! How rarely can late reason flourish with early freedom! Once only, in the whole history of the world, has Providence proposed this problem, and we have seen how she solved it. Through the long war of the middle ages she preserved political life in Europe fresh, until the material was collected for the unravelling of moral existence. Europe alone has states at once enlightened, civilized and unsubdued; in every other spot, wildness dwells with freedom, slavery with culture. But Europe alone has struggled through a thousand years of war, and nothing short of the devastations of the fifth and sixth century could have induced this long period of contest. It is neither the blood of their forefathers nor the character of their race that preserved our ancestors from the yoke of oppression, for their equally free-born brothers the Turcomans and Mantschu have bowed their necks beneath the pressure of despotism. It is not the European soil and clime that exempted them from this fate, for on this very ground and beneath the same sky, have Gauls and Britons, Etrurians and Lusitanians borne the Roman yoke. The sword of the Vandals and Huns that unsparingly mow ed down the west, and the powerful nation that occupied the eleared space and came out unsubdued from the war of ten centuries-these are the artificers of our present fortune, and thus we recognize the spirit of order in the two most alarming appearances exhibited by history. I believe this long digression requires no apology. The great epochs in history are so closely united that none can be elucidated singly, and the occurrence of the crusades is only the beginning to the solution of the problem, offered by national migration, to the philosopher of history. In the thirteenth century it is that the spirit of the world, hitherto weaving in darkness, draws aside the curtain, to display a part of his work. The heavy and troubled cloud, col lected for a thousand years around the European horizon, divides at this moment, and a clear sky breaks forth. The united misery of spiritual uniformity and political discord, of hierarchy and feudality, full of years and exhausted by time, must prepare itself an end in its most monstrous work, in the tumult of the holy war. A fanatic zeal springs up in the closed West, and the grown-up son steps forth from the paternal house. Amazed, he gazes on other nations; on the Thracian Bosphorus, rejoices in his freedom and daring, in Byzan tium, blushes at his rude tastes, his ignorance and fierceness, and in Asia, is shocked at his poverty. What he there received and brought home, the annals of Europe declare the history of the East, if we had one, would tell us what he gave and left behind. But does it not appear as though the heroic spirit of the Frank had breathed a fleeting life into perishing Byzantium? Unexpectedly she recovers herself, and, strengthened by the short visit of the German, advances with a nobler step to death. Behind the crusader, the merchant erects his bridges, and the recovered bond between the east and west, hastily knit by the giddy confusion of war, is confirmed and perpetuated by considerate commerce. The ship of the Levant greets again its well-known waves, and its rich lading calls forth the industry of craving Europe. Soon will she dispense with the doubtful guidance of Arcturus, and with a fixed rule within herself, venture confi. dently on untried seas. The wants of the Asiatic accompany the European home; but here his woods know him no more, and other banners wave over his castles. Impoverished in his own land, in order to shine on the banks of the Euphrates, he surrenders the worshiped idol of his independence and feudal autho rity, and permits his slaves to purchase with gold the rights of nature. Spontaneously he offers his arm to the fetter that adorns him, and subdues the untamed. The majesty of kings erects itself, whilst the slaves of the soil grow into men; out of the sea of devastation soon, from wretchedness, arises a new and fruitful land, civil community. He alone who was the soul of the undertaking and had let all Christendom labour for his greatness, the Romish hierarch, sees his hopes perish. Snatching at a cloud-form in the east, he gave up for lost a real crown in the west. His strength was in the weakness of kings; anarchy and civil war were the exhaustless armoury from whence he drew his thunders. Even yet he launches them, but the established might of royalty comes forth to meet them. No excommunication, no heaven-barring interdict, no absolution from sacred duties, can again dissolve the salutary ties which bind subjects to their lawful rulers. the vein des bis impotent rage resist the spirit of the time which first constructed his throne, and now precipitates him thence! By superstition was this phantom of the middle ages begotten, and by discord nourished. Weak as were its roots, it grew up with hideous rapidity in the eleventh century. No age had ever beheld its like. Who could believe that the enemy of the most holy liberty could ever be sent to the aid of freedom? As the strife grew hot between kings and nobles, he threw himself between the unequal combatants, and maintained the perilous rupture, until in the third estate a better warrior arose to cut off the creature of a moment. Supported by confusion, he pined away in order, the offspring of night vanishes with the day light. But did the dictator disappear who hastened against Pompey to the aid of prostrate Rome? Or Pisistratus, who arrayed against each other the factions of Athens? Rome and Athens pass from civil war into slavery-new Europe travels on to freedom. Why was Europe more fortunate? Because here a fleeting phantom effected, what there an abiding power achieved; because here alone was found an arm of sufficient force to ward off oppression, but too weak to practise it. How differently does man sow and fortune reap! To chain Asia to the footstool of his throne, the Holy Father surrenders to the sword of the Saracens a million of his heroic sons, but with them he has drawn away the steadiest supports of his seat in Europe. The Noble dreams of new pretensions and of the conquest of fresh crowns, and brings back a more obe dient heart to the feet of his ruler. The pious Pilgrim seeks, at the holy sepulchre, the pardon of sins and the joys of paradise, and to him alone is more granted than was promised. He recovers his manhood in Asia, and brings with him, from that portion of the globe, the seeds of liberty back to his European brethren-an acquisition of infinitely higher importance than the keys of Jerusalem or the nails from the cross of the Saviour. SIR, COMAR YATES. Enfield, Sept. 29, 1825. IT has, I believe, heen, maintained by many, that our religious innovators, when they drew up the Thirtynine Articles of the sect established by law, purposely worded them in so ambiguous a manner as to admit of much diversity of sentiment in its members, and especially in its clergy. In a similar manner, notwithstanding that a prince of the blood royal, his Royal Highness the Duke of York, heir apparent to the throne of the United Kingdom, and that many who think their interest to be involved in things as they are, or who are of so timid a temper of mind as to dread all idea of change lest such results may ensue as are not anticipated-notwithstanding the alarms and fears of these and their consequent misinterpretation, may we not justly conclude that our political innovators too, when they drew up the form of the coronation oath, contemplated and looked forward to the possibility of some change being hereafter wished for; and that they therefore made use of such forms of expression as would admit changes being introduced without any violation of the oath which they were about to impose on that one for whom it was first intended, and on all future sovereigns of these realms on ascending the British throne? Could they, while they aimed to satisfy all parties of their own day, have left a more convenient loop-hole for change, than is formed in the expressions quoted by his Royal Highness for the directly contrary purpose? How run the words cited by the Duke of York? (P. 434.) "I will, to the utmost of my power, maintain |