monk, and the priest, seemed gradually indeed to have retired, but we have scarcely time to become aware of the change, when once more, we meet them in armies, and conquerors before the Sepulchre of Jesus Christ. The whole Christian world appears to have been united in one vow, and Jerusalem has had the singular merit of having been the cause and object of this momentary union. These efforts were followed by achievement, and the achievement rewarded by a very scanty portion of worldly, and a great profusion of spiritual blessing, but which, like every other profusion, carried with it its own corrective: the value lowered in proportion to the quantity. The expedient of Urban II. was felicitous rather than prudent: it was crowned indeed with complete success, as far at least as his views, or the views of any sovereign could go, in an age notorious for its ignorance of all the principles of civil government; but his successors altogether mistook the example; they lost all kind of discrimination; every occasion in the life of an old man was thought of importance to the world, as well as the individual; the treasury was so often called on, and so often in arrear, that alloy was first hazarded, then used with impunity. The predication of a Crusade in the middle ages was a substitute for every deficit; and no South sea scheme, or modern foreign loan, ever raised from warmer proselytes, more extensive and efficient resources. Princes were not ashamed to purchase, or usurp this ambiguous prerogative of the Pontiff, until at last this instrument, like all others of arbitrary power, wore itself out by repeated abuse. But the passion for pilgrimage, as it had preceded, so also it survived the chivalrous extravagance of the age. The encouragements hitherto held out in favour of these warlike expeditions, "outremer," were gradually transferred to the religious resident, or the peaceful visitor. The constitutions relating to the Holy Land, even long after the military spirit of the Crusaders had wholly subsided, would fill a very considerable volume; but the curious reader will find enough to engage his attention in a selection of those of Urban II., Bonifice VIII., Clement VI., Innocent VI., Urban V., Gregory XI., Eugenius IV., Paul II., Sixtus IV., and Urban VIII. The object of most of these instruments is obvious, and the great majority refer exclusively to local and domestic circumstances; but the first of Eugenius IV. is almost a declaration of war, and recalls, with some disadvantage to his holiness, the memory of his predecessor Urban II. His means were not equal to his indignation; and he accuses the Turks without much measure, and in a style not quite so pardonable as that of the elegant invective of Æneas Sylvius (Pius II.), of every species of profanation, "omnes flagitiorum spureitiarumque actus, quibus infelices cinædi, Sodomorum imitatores, inquinari consueverunt, illis in ipsis sacratissimis locis, ad fidei Christianæ ignominiam fecerit exerceri," &c. (Constitutiones et Literæ Apostolicæ quæ in gratiam Terræ Sanctæ, &c. &c.;) But the Turks might easily have refuted him from his own historians, without even applying to the partial testimonies of their own Abulfeda, Bohadin, &c. No nation has a greater veneration for the Holy City than the Arab; and no religion, perhaps, than the Mahomedan sends a greater number of pilgrims to its shrines. After " the Haram" of Mecca," the Sakhera" of El Hods, or Jerusalem, is the great object of the desires, and prayers, and peregrinations of all Islam. With the Christian, it is a matter of high merit, no doubt; the title of

Hadji (Pilgrim) is one which is coveted by every sectary in the East; for, with certain traditional sneers against the pretensions which it puts forth, it still maintains a very enviable ascendeney in most of the public and private transactions of life; with all this it is an honour left at the option of the individual, it is an act of supererogatory piety, no one is compelled to become either a saint or a pilgrim in his own despite. In the Mahomedan code, on the contrary, it stands high amongst the primary duties of the orthodox Moslim; and every devout follower of the Prophet, as he hopes to avoid the razor-looking bridge of hell, is expected to make the pilgrimage, at least to Mecca, once, if not twice, before his death. I do not mean to say, however, that there is a closer connexion, in the East, between precept and performance, than in Europe in great capitals, all the machinery, both moral and physical, of life is very easily simplified; and at Constantinople, and Damascus, there are numerous classes, (here they would have formed a joint-stock society,) who hire themselves out at a moderate premium, as substitutes for the lazy, the timid, and the rich. I had the pleasure of being accompanied by two or three of these professional pilgrims, on my way through the Desert, and no men seemed better suited for Deserttravelling than they were. They neither saw, ate, nor drank, nor spake; except in the smallest possible proportion, during the whole time of our acquaintance; they had saved a great number of very doubtful souls already, and they intended, with a perseverance only common amongst the Bramins, to go on in the same laudable vocation until their death. The Arabs, indeed, might justly expostulate against this partial interpretation of the Khoran, but they suffered the diminution of their spoils, with an exemplary patience:-the only nation amongst them which rose up, were the Wahabees, but the principle of their revolt was not a reform, but a destruction, on the sternest grounds of theism, of the pilgrims, and the pilgrimage altogether. Mecca was for some time in their infidel grasp; and the consternation of the believers could only be compared to the tears of Europe on the destruction of her Latin kingdom of Jerusalem: a second Saladin, however, soon appeared in the person of Mahomed-Ali, Mecca was delivered," and "God is victorious" once more sung, with as much right as our Te Deums, from every Minaret in the empire.

The Jews, however, though not the most ostentatious, are after all the most constant, in their adherence to the land of their forefathers. They required neither the arms of a khalif, nor the bulls of a pope, to fix them, in old age, and death, near the foot of their Sion and their Moriah. The spirit of pilgrimage still lives, and has always lived amongst them. Banished not only by Hadrian, but still more effectually by the hatred of the Christian occupiers of their city, according to St. Jerome, (in Ps. lxii. v. 18.) "Exclusi de ipso loco, ubi crucifixerunt Christum, nullum Judæum habet;" yet they soon found means to enter thrice a year, not only the city, but the Temple, and to weep unperceived over the fall of their kingdom and religion. They still retain four or five miserable synagogues immediately under the Mosque of Omar, in one of the most confined districts of the whole city; and it is to these habitations that the whole Jewish population of Palestine, and particularly the inhabitants of the very Hebrew town of Tiberias, resort from time to time for the celebration of their passover. Nor is their

affection limited to these casual visits; the superannuated and infirm come here to die with their eyes fixed on the site of the Temple, and recall, in the last dreams of their existence, " the glories of David and of Solomon," and "the beauty of the Queen of Nations," and "the desolation of abomination," which has come so fully, and inexorably upon them. And when dead, their last request is immediately complied with, and their bodies are laid in the valley of Jehosaphat, turned as much as possible towards the sacred city, that "when the day of resurrection cometh," the first object which their eyes may be given to behold, may be" the re-edification of her walls and the glory of the house of prayer." Grey hairs and misfortune are always affecting; but when a nation is thus personified, and this personification is placed amongst ruins, and those are the ruins of Jerusalem-it is difficult not to feel the full value of those inexplicable influences, which attach us to certain sites, and to justify, in some degree, the principle and object of all pilgrimages. Nor is it only to spots rendered sacred to us by their solemn connexion with our religion, and its history, that we find ourselves irresistibly impelled ;-there is a " genius loci," guardian over every scene which has been consecrated by the real glories of our species, a protecting association, which invites us to them, as to a sort of Temple and a shrine. The noble passage of Doctor Johnson is a magnificent answer to all colder pleading on this subject: no one who stands on Marathon, on Thermopyla, at Troy, at Rome, can feel that what he stands on is ordinary ground. And if this be so with causes, and events, and men, and things, with whom we have no other relation than that of a lofty estimate of patriotism and virtue, how much more intimately ought we to feel our approach to scenes and objects interwoven into every particle of our existence, here and hereafter, and upon which our happiness, as nations or individuals, universally and perpetually depends! Pilgrimages to such shrines are only larger expansions of a well-grounded enthusiasm, and, under proper regulations, attest a gratitude which it is a glory, as well as a duty, to feel. ought, therefore, to be more inclined to pardon, than condemn their appearance, or frequency, in other times; an excess does not argue an original vice; and we should first ascertain whether it be a God or a Devil which inspires, before we take upon ourselves to question or cast him forth.

We

A banner from its flashing spear
Flung out o'er many a fight;
A war-cry ringing far and clear,
And strong to turn the flight;
An arm that bravely bore the lance
On for the holy shrine,

A haughty heart and a kingly glance-
-Chief! were not these things thine?

A lofty place where leaders sate
Around the council-board;

In festive halls a chair of state,

When the blood-red wine was pour'd;
A name that drew a prouder tone
From herald, harp, and bard

-Surely these things were all thine own,
So hadst thou thy reward!

Woman! whose sculptured form at rest
By the armed knight is laid,
With meek hands folded o'er a breast
In matron-robes array'd;
What was thy tale ?-Oh, gentle mate
Of him, the bold and free,
Bound unto his victorious fate,
What bard hath sung of thee?

He woo'd a bright and burning star;
Thine was the void, the gloom,
The straining eye that follow'd far
His oft receding plume;

The heart-sick listening while his steed
Sent echoes on the breeze;

The pang-but when did Fame take heed
Of griefs obscure as these?

Thy silent and secluded hours,
Through many a lonely day,

While bending o'er thy broider'd flowers,

With spirit far away;

Thy weeping midnight prayers for him
Who fought on Syrian plains;

Thy watchings till the torch

grew

-These fill no minstrel-strains.

dim,

SKETCH OF THE LIFE OF THE GRAND DUKE

CONSTANTINE OF RUSSIA.*

By the death of the Emperor Alexander, the affairs of Europe, nay of the world, may be materially changed: hence the future policy of Russia has acquired a novel and an intense interest. We therefore hope that our readers will be amused and gratified with the following sketch.

The Grand Duke and Tsesarévitch Konstantine Pávlovitch, was born on the 9th May, 1779. Like the late Alexander, and indeed all his brothers and sisters, he passed his infantile days under the care of proper attendants and the constant surveillance of his imperial parent, the Empress-Mother. When an infant, he was remarkably lively, but he very early developed those passions which have clung to him through life. His sensibility, his fretfulness, his restlessness, his caprice, and his violence, were the cause of great uneasiness and much trouble to his attendants, who sincerely envied the places of those who were attached to the then Grand Duke,—the mild, the placid, and the contented Alexander. In the very dawning of his days, while his passions would know no control, he, however, gave strong evidences of acuteness and intelligence. The little round cherub-faces of healthy children so much resemble each other, and their features, in general, are so little developed, that the best physiognomists, and even craniologists, cannot pretend to trace in them the indications of the future mind; but Constantine's resemblance to the extraordinary-featured Paul,

The author of the Sketches of the late Emperor Alexander, and of the Grand Duke Constantine, is most anxious that no individual should be compromised by the revelation of numerous secrets and anecdotes, which are supposed to be known only to the attachés of the court. The sources of his information were various; he collected many valuable facts among foreigners, but still more from liberal-minded Russians. A few of the individuals who innocently related some. curious information for his amusement, have already paid the debt of nature; some have left Russia, and are beyond the influence of despotic power; and others still continue their correspondence, notwithstanding the extreme watchfulness and the excessive severity of the numerous agents of the police. In fact, no power on earth can prevent his receiving intelligence from Russia, unless all land and water communication with the surrounding states be interdicted. "In a country in which money overcomes every principle, in which bribes break down every barrier of justice," of course no person acquainted with the genius, the customs, and the manners of all ranks of the natives, can experience difficulty in obtaining every kind of information. The reader, however, must not iufer from the above melancholy quotation that the writer has had recourse to such an ignoble expedient as bribery: on the contrary, he honestly declares that he never gave a single farthing for any communication, either during his residence in Russia, or since his return to Great Britain. He must further add, that no individual in this country who has any dependent connexion with Russia, or with any of the Russian embassies, that no former and no present employé or attaché of the Northern Court, is the source of his knowledge of the state of that empire. While he openly makes known these facts, he defies all the efforts of despotic power, and all the vigour of the very inquisitorial police of Russia, to make a single discovery that can either endanger the character, the liberty, or the life of any of his correspondents, whose names shall never be made known, while they are in Russia, or at least on this side the grave. Intelligence flows in copiously upon the writer, from many quarters; and in the spirit of patriotism, he will endeavour to turn that intelligence to the amusement and the instruction of his countrymen, as well as to the advantage of his country.

Lyall's Character of the Russians.