Italy, France, and England,-for Germany still remained many centuries less civilized than the surrounding countries, swarmed with monks and cloisters. Superstition, of whatever kind, whether earthly or divine, has hitherto been the weight which clogged man to earth, and prevented his genius from soaring aloft amid its native skies. The enterprises, and the effects of the human mind, are something more than stupendous: the works of nature are material and tangible: we have a half insight into their kind, and in many instances we predict their effects with certainty. But mind seems to govern the world without visible or substantial means. Its birth is unknown; its action and influence unperceived; and its being seems eternal. To the mind both humane and philosophical, there cannot exist a greater subject of grief, than the reflection of how much superstition has retarded the progress of intellect, and consequently the happiness of man. The monks in their cloisters were engaged in trifling and ridiculous disputes: they contented themselves with teaching the dogmas of their religion, and rushed impatiently forth to the colleges and halls, where they disputed with an acrimony and meanness little befitting the resemblance of their pretended holiness. But the situation of a monk is a situation the most unnatural that bigotry, proud in the invention of cruelty, could conceive; and their vices may be pardoned as resulting from the wills and devices of a few proud and selfish bishops, who enslaved the world that they might live at ease. The disputes of the schools were mostly scholastical; it was the discussion of words, and had no relation to morality. Morality,-the great means and end of man, -was contained, as they affirmed, in the extent of a few hundred pages of a certain book, which others have since contended were but scraps of martyrs' last dying words, collected together and imposed on the world. In the refinements of the scholastic philosophy, the world seemed in danger of losing the little real wisdom that still remained as her portion; and the only valuable part of their disputes was such as tended to develope the system of the Peripatetic Philosophers. Plato, the wisest, the profoundest, and Epicurus, the most humane and gentle among the ancients, were entirely neglected by them. Plato interfered with their peculiar mode of thinking concerning heavenly matters; and Epicurus, maintaining the rights of man to pleasure and happiness, would have afforded a seducing contrast to their dark and miserable code of morals. It has been asserted, that these holy men solaced their lighter moments in a contraband worship of Epicurus, and profaned the philosophy which maintained the rights of all by a selfish indulgence of the rights of a few. Thus it is the laws of nature are invariable, and man sets them aside that he may have the pleasure of travelling through a labyrinth in search of them again. Pleasure, in an open and innocent garb, by some strange process of reasoning, is called vice; yet man (so closely is he linked to the chains of necessity-so irresistibly is he impelled to fulfil the end of his being,) must seek her at whatever price: he becomes a hypocrite, and braves damnation with all its pains. Grecian literature, the finest the world has ever produced, was at length restored: its form and mode we obtained from the manuscripts which the ravages of time, of the Goths, and of the still more savage Turks, had spared. The burning of the Library at Alexandria was an evil of importance. This library is said to have contained volumes of the choicest Greek authors. [The Essay on Christianity was first given by Lady Shelley, in the Shelley Memorials (1859), where it is accompanied by the following note :-"The reader will observe some unfinished sentences in the course of this Essay; but it has been thought advisable to print it exactly as it was found, with the exception of a few conjectural words inserted between brackets." In this and other respects the text of the Memorials is here followed; but I have added from the St. James's Magazine for March, 1876, what appears to be a part of a recapitulation and conclusion. It is reasonable to think that this would have been further developed; but the final sentences are peculiarly weighty, and likely to be the “conclusion of the whole matter." Mr. Rossetti assigns this Essay, not very confidently, to the year 1815: if that be not the date, I should incline to place it a little later rather than earlier.-H. B. F.] |