SHORT RULES FOR PLAIN PEOPLE RESPECTING THE EVIDENCE OF MIRACLES. DEAR SIR, ΤΟ You frequently complain that the affairs of Ireland fail to excite a due degree of attention; and that, happen what may in your devoted country, (as the phrase is) the sister kingdoms are as little interested as with the occurrences in China or Japan. It is very hard that I cannot succeed in convincing you that such complaints have no foundation; whatever may have been the case heretofore, I am quite persuaded, the time for this lamentation is now passed away. Instead of the alleged indifference, I find, go where I will, an intense, I could almost call it a morbid anxiety, respecting your concerns; everywhere I perceive a disposition to treat you like a favoured invalid-all arrangements are made to bend to your wants and wishes; and if from time to time you prove yourselves a little froward and unruly, this is regarded only as an established case for the exercise of forbearance, and we call upon each other not to correct the fault, but to mourn over the infirmity, arising, as all are ready to acknowledge, out of the peculiar circumstances of your condition. It is a mistake, then, on your part, thus continually to renew this obsolete complaining; still it is impossible not to admit that the mistake is pardonable; for it does happen, that, notwithstanding all our pains, we are sometimes wholly at a loss to make out what you would have. We look at your doings as we would regard the caprices of the sick baby above alluded to, and a pause of unfeigned astonishment intervenes, which you perhaps mistake for indifference. As an illustration of the truth of this, I would refer to the recent transactions respecting Prince Hohenlohe's alleged miracles. The behaviour of all the parties connected with this affair, has indeed excited no small degree of astonishment in the minds of all persons with whom I have conversed. Those who know Ireland best, were not quite prepared for such a display: The excess of boldness exhibited by the Romish priesthood, the eager acquiescence of the laity, and, above all, the utter supineness of the Protestant clergy, when the ESQ. DUBLIN. very foundations of Christian truth are so insolently attacked; these things in combination have assumed a novelty of aspect startling even to those who were most familiar with the anomalies that make your history remarkable. Amongst our own clergy, I am well aware that there are many excellent men, who shrink from the bare suspicion of controversy, knowing how hard a thing it is to sail on that stormy sea, and keep their Christian course with steadiness. But surely it would not be in the indulgence of a controversial spirit merely, if they, one and all, had entered their caveat against the pretensions of this modern Thaumaturgist, and freely declared that the claims so loudly and so pertinaciously urged, will not bear the test of ordinary examination; that they are absurd, illusory, and blasphemous. They should have performed this duty, were it only to discharge their consciences, and to acquit themselves of the debt they owe their people; and, in truth, there would be little room for any other motive to operate; secular ambition would find easier avenues to success, and the reputation of intellectual novelty would hardly be attained in a road so well known and so often travelled. For it is no new thing that the defenders of the Romish superstitions should have resort to imposture and delusion; nor is it new that the imposture should be detected, and the delusion exposed. The few short rules I am about to submit through you to the judgment of all my Protestant friends and brethren, disclaim any such pretensions to novelty. They are written in the understanding of every plain man, and have already been collected and put into form for our use, by an eminent prelate* of the Church of England. An alleged display of miraculous power, confidently supported by a long array of attestations, must, in the first instance, have a tendency to stagger the faith of sincere and unsuspecting believers. "I have been told," such an one may perhaps say to himself, "that the evidence of miracles rests on testimony, and here seems to be testimony in abundance. What shall • Bishop Douglas. I do then? Shall I, with the Romanist, receive implicitly all that is told me, or, with the sceptic, reject everything which is not supported by the evidence of my senses?" To a mind thus wavering, it is impossible to bring either support or consolation, unless we bid him enter fearlessly into an investigation of the nature of the testimony to which he is required to as sent. He will thus be enabled to decide for himself, and to perceive that, while the Protestant Christian admits the miracles recorded in Scripture, as furnishing an irresistible proof of the truth of revelation, and rejects those which are told of the Pagans of old, or the Papists of modern times, neither this admission, nor this rejection, can be considered as arbitrary; both rest on the same foundation of reason. It is the same exercise of the understanding which constrains him to yield his assent in one case, and to withhold it in the other. Nor will he be in the least afraid that by this rejection of false miracles he should weaken either the authority or the evidence of those which bear the stamp of truth, any more than, in the occurrences of ordinary life, he will hesitate to refuse base coin, lest he should diminish the credit of that which is genuine. Indeed, the very existence of false miracles serves, if rightly considered, as an additional proof, that at some time and place there must have been true ones; just as we know that the coiner would never attempt his fraud, if there had not been originally some good money, which it was his object to imitate. We may pursue this illustration farther, by adding, that, as it is every man's interest, in his every-day concerns, to obtain some means of knowing good money from bad, forged notes from genuine, so,-though in an infinitely higher degree, as the interests of eternity transcend those which are secular only and transitory-is it desirable that every man should possess the means of finding out those tricks of human imposture which are passed off on the ignorant or unwary, as the interpositions of divine agency. I would lay down, therefore, these broad and general rules, as applicable, with safety and certainty, in all cases. 1. That, whenever a fact can be ascribed, however remotely, to natural causes, any reference to divine interposition is absolutely excluded. 2. That, whenever the testimony affords ground even for a suspicion of fraud, it must be rejected entirely, and at once. In neither of these cases is there any room for compromise; nor need we be under any apprehension that we shall weaken the authority either of the Old or New Testament miracles, by the most unsparing application of these rules. The events therein recorded will not merely endure these tests, but they will serve to put their truth and strength in the clearest point of view; for by no exercise can the mind be so well prepared to detect falsehood, as by being made habitually conversant with the lineaments of truth. But our second rule will admit of a more detailed explanation.— A suspicion of fraud may reasonably exist in any case. 1. If the accounts of the alleged miracles were not published to the world till long after the time when they are said to have been performed. 2. If the accounts were published at a distance from the place where the miraculous agency was supposed to be manifested. 3. If at the time when, and the place where, they are said to have happened, they have been suffered to pass without due examination." By the application which all may make for themselves of these simple rules, we get rid at once of the whole mass of legendary folly by which the records of the Romish Church are disgraced. For example, the Jesuits have been fond to represent their founder, Ignatius Loyola, as a worker of miracles; and many and various are the wonders they record of him; but apply our first rule, and down go these pretensions; for, upon examination, it appears that none of these accounts were written, or these stories told, till he had been dead fifty years; and even then, the statements were made in direct contradiction to the authority of Ribadeneira, the only one of his biographers who was personally acquainted with him, and who, instead of laying claim to supernatural powers on behalf of his master, expressly labours to find a reason for his wanting this distinguishing mark of the candidates for canonization. Again, St Francis Xavier is deservedly celebrated for his missionary labours in India; but his brother Jesuits, not satisfied with giving a plain statement of his actual labours, published (not in India, remark, but in Europe, forty years after his death! so that two of our rules apply)—the most marvellous stories concerning him. Yet his own letters, which may be referred to, contain no allusion whatever to the possession of the powers thus attributed to him; and Acosta, who was engaged in the same service, actually assigns it as one reason of their want of success, that no supernatural interference had been manifested in their behalf. These facts are here adverted to, merely for the sake of recalling to your recollection the boldness and pertinacity with which the fraudulent pretensions of the Romish Church have uniformly been sustained. The application of the third rule falls more within our present purpose, as enabling us to form a right judgment of the circumstances which are actually taking place under our notice. In reference to this rule, I would remark, that it is morally impossible that due examination should be instituted, where the alleged miracles coincide with the favourite sentiments and prejudices of those to whom they are reported; and where the accounts originate with, and rest upon, the authority of those who alone possess the means of detecting the fraud, and who have it in their power to prevent all inquiry which might tend to undeceive the world. There is in most minds a disposition to credulity, and when this is encouraged by the condition of blind ignorance in which the people are kept by their Teachers, there must exist an inclination to receive with unquestioning delight any story which is out of the ordinary course of events; especially when related by those whose acknowledged superiority in intellectual attainment is strengthened by the influence of their spiritual character. Amongst such hearers, and with such relaters, I contend that no account of miraculous agency can have a chance of obtaining due examination; nor can the advocates for the credibility of Prince Hohenlohe's miracles point out a single narrative of any alleged cure, which is not so deeply imbued with this taint of suspicion, that the eye of childhood may detect it. And in fact, the published and attested statements carry with them so palpably their own confutation, that no reader of plain un derstanding can bring himself to conceive how those who drew them up can refrain from laughing in the face of those who are so besotted as to receive them. Yet we are told that they have been generally received, and the tone in which they are referred to by the priests, proves that among the people there is little or no disposition to question them. Can there be a more convincing proof that their state of mind is such as has been described above, and that they are absolutely disqualified as judges in the matter?—It is curious and edifying to observe how closely this whole affair resembles, in all its leading features, that notable display of Romish credulity and fraud which took place in France about a century ago, at the tomb of the blessed deacon, as he was called, the Abbè Paris. Exactly the same sort of cures, confirmed by the same sort of attestations; and all resolvable into one of these three classes: gross and demonstrated frauds; cures effected by the agencyof natural causes,or those brought about by the influence of the imagination. It is quite as much in sorrow as in anger that this comparison is instituted; it would be more gratifying to believe that the Romish clergy of the present day were too conscientious to make themselves parties to such delusions, or at least too prudent to expose themselves to the disgrace of detection. But the manner in which some of their prelates have been identified with these transactions, casts a stigma on the whole body.-Nevertheless, the sincere Christian will not have any fears lest the pillars of his faith should be shaken by these occurrences; the sacred fortress which has so long resisted the malice of enemies from without, is not, we are confident, doomed to fall by the treachery of the garrison within; yet it may be put to the conscience of every man who, bearing the character, and discharging the functions, of an ordained minister, has given countenance to those pretensions, whether he has not, as far as in him lay, contributed to sap the foundations of our common Christianity.-The citations from Holy Scripture, and the comparisons little less than blasphemous which have been instituted between this German and our blessed Lord himself, must have afforded an occasion of triumph to the infidel, while to pious minds they have caused the deepest affliction. Men who could be rash enough to make such appeals, are little likely, I fear, to retract them, or even to revise the grounds on which they are supposed to rest. If, however, there be any one who entertains a real confidence in the soundness of his cause, let him answer, if he can, these demands: Why, if the cures were miraculous, they should have been gradual, partial, and incomplete? Why, if they were intended to confirm the peculiar doctrines of the Romish church, and to put heretics to shame, they never have been wrought where heretics might have the means of judging concerning them? Why, if they are supposed to depend on the efficacy of simultaneous prayer, no notice was taken of the difference of longitude in the first reputed miracle at New Hall, though that differ◄ ence has since been most ostentatiously insisted on? But there is no end to the queries which common sense would suggest on this subject; to common sense I am well satisfied that the whole matter should be left, though in the interval it is impossible not to entertain feelings of indignation against those persons with whom the fraud has originated, contempt for those who have wilfully made themselves parties to it, and pity for all who have been deluded by it. I remain, dear Sir, MODERN DRAMAS, AND DRAMATIC WRITERS. WHENEVER a new play is damned at either of our great theatres, and that is the case, (or ought to be,) nine times in ten that a new play is produced, we are sure to have a homily from a certain class of critics, about "The decline of the national drama." If by this "decline of the national drama," nothing more was meant to be conveyed than that our dramatic novelties (number and value) have ranked low within the last thirty years, that is a statement which I should not contradict; but the principle meant to be asserted is this, that the power of dramatic writing has declined in England during the last half century; and that decline, (if it exists at all), seems to me to be very much exaggerated. It will be admitted, and perhaps even by that enlightened class of disputants, who are content to perceive effects without embarrassing themselves as to causes, that, if the force of our dramatic composition has abated at the present day, that style of writing is the only one in which we fail. Byron, and Moore, and Scott, and Coleridge, Wordsworth, Southey, Shelley, and Crabbe,-Milman, Wilson, and twenty others, whose names I only omit because my list is strong enough without them,-these are writers, I think, to challenge rank with the very first poets of the sixteenth VOL. XIV. century; and in that delightful species of composition, second only to poetry, I mean in the construction of prose romances and novels, what have we up to the present period, take away alone Defoe, to set against Smollett, Fielding, Richardson, and the author (whoever he may be) of Waverley? To the drama, however; and, first, to the composition of Tragedy. Shakespeare, Beaumont and Fletcher, Massinger, Ford, and the dramatists, in general, of the days of Elizabeth and James-(men whose powers no human creature can be readier than I am to admit); since these writers are so held up in terrorem, against modern dramatic adventurers, let us see in what manner modern dramatic taste treats their productions. So loftily as the plays of this school are commended, and so universally as: they are read, is it not strange, (if they be, as plays, so excellent) that so few of them are in course of acting? We can't lay the blame here upon the bad taste of managers. Their taste is bad enough in general, Heaven knows; but, as regards the old authors, managers have not been to blame, They have submitted to have the force of the old dramas made apparent to them; they have tried the revival of them over and over again; and yet, in spite of their repeated endeavours, not a single tragedy of Beaumont and Flet-! cher's has been able to keep the stage; 4 A and even Shakespeare-(the exception to the poets of his day)-even Shakespeare lives only so altered and refashioned, that scarce half the tragedies now acted under his name, could be recognized for those which he originally composed. It is pleasant to talk of the " presumptuous interpolations," or of the "absurd alterations," of Tate, Dryden, and Cibber; but it is under the versions of those writers (presumptuous though they be) that one half the tragedies of Shakespeare are applauded at the present day. We are bored to death about the "superiority" of the plays "in their original shape;" why are not the plays, in their original shape, performed? I do not speak of preserving precisely the old text, or of giving such passages, as, from their coarseness, modern refinement would revolt at; but the plays as (in the main) they were originally written; with the original plots, the original dialogues, characters, action, and arrangement; and since the plays, in this shape, are so surpassingly admirable, why is it, I ask again, that, in this shape, they are not acted? Shakespeare's conceptions, put into shape for the modern market, by men of practical knowledge and ability. The truth is no disparagement to Shakespeare, or his contemporariesthat it was easier to write a successful play in their time, than it is in ours. The audiences of the sixteenth century, although alive to excellence, and eager of it, were less fastidious in their criticism than ours of the year 1823. Along with a certain quantity of that which was admirable, they would accept of a good deal which was weak or absurd. form of publication which can enable the author to begin, without considering in what manner he shall finishis grasped at eagerly by the lighter writers of the present day. Look through the productions, generally, of our dramatists of the Golden Age. Three-fourths of their plays abound in beauties; but scarce one in twenty is complete. We find instance upon instance, through volume after volume, of two or perhaps three acts of lively fable and spirited writing in a play, rendered wholly unavailable by the monstrosity of the matter that follows. In fact, the difficulty, two hundred years ago, lay where the difficulty lies now-not in the opening, but in the finishing of a work. Half our modern novelists and I speak of the best of Hamlet, Othello, Macbeth, and Ju- them-break down (the fact is notorilius Cæsar, are the only (popular) ous) in their catastrophe. "Sketches," tragedies of Shakespeare which are "Remembrances"-" Fragments"played with any approach to the ori-Wayside Conversations," -every ginal reading. Shakespeare's Richard the Third, is no more like the Richard the Third now acted, than Massinger's Fatal Dowery is like the Fair Penitent of Rowe. Henry the Eighth, and King Lear, have suffered as much change almost as Richard the Third. The Tempest is anything (as it is acted) but Shakespeare's play; and great li berties have been taken with both Romeo and Juliet and Coriolanus. And the alterations in these plays are not confined to alterations of the text. They do not stop at the exclusion of offensive passages from the dialogue, nor even at changes in the business and interest of the piece. Whole-into a difficulty; and cut the knot scenes-nay, almost whole acts are without scruple, whenever they were frequently struck out, and replaced unable to untie it. With them, to use either with matter entirely new, or a phrase of familiar illustration," all with matter transferred from some was fish that came to net." They had other of the author's productions. no nicety about the choice of a subject Plots are altered-incidents are omitted-characters are changed, or added, or subtracted; and half the tragedies, in short, as I have said before, now acted as the plays of Shakespeare, are little more, at the best, than But though such tales," signifying nothing," pass muster in the closet, yet they will not, in these fine times, do upon the stage. Our theatrical audiences now will have their reasonable solution; that desideratum which the audiences of the sixteenth century were always contented to forego. The old writers sat down with all nature open to them for material; they wrote themselves, hand over head-right on they were bound to no regularity in the arrangement of a plot-they cared little about maintaining interest, and nothing about keeping up consistency, from the beginning to the end of a five act drama-they gave four or five |