many there must have been in the day-tle by these dreadful oaths and terrifytime! and mark this, that they came less ing functions. Two years later on, the to hear his sermon than to see him." same chronicler tells how it was believed As he made his way through the throng, that blood had rained outside the Porta his frock was almost torn to pieces on a Laterino, and that various visions of his back, everybody struggling to get a saints and spectres had appeared to holy fragment.* persons, proclaiming changes in the It did not always need the interposition state, and commanding a public demonof a friar to arouse a strong religious stration of repentance. Each parish orpanic in Italian cities. After an unusual- ganized a procession, and all in turn ly fierce bout of discord the burghers marched, some by day and some by night, themselves would often attempt to give singing litanies and beating and scourging the sanction of solemn rites and vows themselves, to the cathedral, where they before the altar to their temporary truces. dedicated candles; and "one ransomed Siena, which was always more disturbed prisoners, for an offering, and another by civil strife than any of her neighbours, dowered a girl in marriage.' In Bologna offered a notable example of this custom in 1457 a similar revival took place on the in the year 1494. The factions of the occasion of an outbreak of the plague. Monti de' Nove and del Popolo had been" Flagellants went round the city, and raging; the city was full of feud and sus- when they came to a cross they all cried picion, and all Italy was agitated by the with a loud voice: Misericordia! miseriFrench invasion. It seemed good, there- cordia!' For eight days there was a strict fore, to the heads of the chief parties fast; the butchers shut their shops." Ferthat an oath of peace should be taken by rara exhibited a like devotion in 1496, on the whole body of the burghers. Allegret- even a larger scale. About this time the ti's account of the ceremony, which took entire Italian nation was panic-stricken by place at dead of night in the beautiful the passage of Charles VIII., and by the cathedral of Siena, is worthy to be trans- changes in states and kingdoms which lated. "The conditions of the peace Savonarola had predicted. The Ferrawere then read, which took up eight rese, to quote the language of their chronpages, together with an oath of the most icler, expected that "in this year, throughhorrible sort, full of maledictions, impre-out Italy, would be the greatest famine, cations, excommunications, invocations war, and want that had ever been since of evil, renunciation of benefits temporal the world began." Therefore they fasted, and spiritual, confiscation of goods, vows, and "the Duke of Ferrara fasted together and so many other woes that to hear it with the whole of his court." At the was terror; et etiam that in articulo mor- same time a proclamation was made tis no sacrament should accrue to the against swearing, games of hazard, and salvation, but rather to the damnation of unlawful trades; and it was enacted that those who might break the said condi- the Jews should resume their obnoxious tions; in so much that I, Allegretto di yellow gaberdine with the O upon their Nanni Allegretti, being present, believe breasts. In 1500 these edicts were rethat never was made or heard a more peated. The condition of Italy had awful and horrible oath. Then the nota-grown worse and worse; it was necessary ries of the Nove and the Popolo, on to besiege the saints with still more enereither side of the altar, wrote down the getic demonstrations. Therefore "the names of all the citizens, who swore upon the crucifix, for on each side there was one, and every couple of the one and the other faction kissed; and the bells clashed, and Te Deum laudamus was sung with the organs and the choir while the oath was being taken. All this happened between one and two hours of the night, with many torches lighted. Now may God will that this be peace indeed, and tranquillity for all citizens, whereof I doubt." The doubt of Allegretti was but too reasonable. Siena profited lit

See "Istori a Bresciana." Muratori, xxi. 865. ↑ See Muratori, vol. xxiii. p. 839.

Duke Ercole da Este, for good reasons to him known, and because it is always well to be on good terms with God, ordained that processions should be made every third day in Ferrara, with the whole clergy, and about four thousand children or more from twelve years of age upwards, dressed in white, and each holding a banner with a painted Jesus. His lordship, and his sons and brothers, followed this procession, namely, the duke on horseback, because he could not then walk, and all the rest on foot, behind the bishop." A certain amount of irony transpires in this quotation, which would make one fancy that the chronicler sus

pected the duke of ulterior, and perhaps hermits was often raised, and the effect
political motives.* It sometimes hap- was always to drive the people to a frenzy
pened that the contagion of such devotion of revivalistic piety. Milan was the cen-
spread from city to city; on one occasion, tre of the military operations of the
in 1399, it travelled from Piedmont French, the Swiss, the Spaniards, and
through the whole of Italy. The epidemic the Germans. No city suffered more
of flagellants, of which Giovanni Villani cruelly, and in none were fanatical proph-
speaks in 1310 (lib. viii. cap. 121), began ets received with greater superstition.
also in Piedmont, and spread along the In 1516 there appeared in Milan “a lay-
Genoese Riviera. The Florentine author-man, large of stature, gaunt, and beyond
ities refused entrance to these fanatics measure wild, without shoes, without
into their territory. In 1334 Villani men- shirt, bareheaded, with bristly hair and
tions another outburst of the same devo- beard, and so thin that he seemed an-
tion (lib. xi. cap. 23), which was excited other Julian the hermit." He lived on
by the preaching of Fra Venturino da water and millet-seed, slept on the bare
Bergamo. The penitents on this occa- earth, refused alms of all sorts, and
sion wore for badge a dove with the preached with wonderful authority. In
olive-branch. They stayed fifteen days spite of the opposition of the archbishop
in Florence, scourging themselves before and chapter, he chose the Duomo for his
the altars of the Dominican churches, theatre; and there he denounced the
and feasting, five hundred at a time, in vices of the priests and monks to vast
the Piazza di S. M. Novella. Corio, in congregations of eager listeners. In a
the "Storia di Milano" (p. 281), gives an word, he engaged in open warfare with
interesting account of these "white peni- the clergy on their own ground. But
tents," as they were called in the year they of course proved too strong for
1399. "Multitudes of men, women, girls, him, and he was driven out of the city.
boys, small and great, townspeople and He was a native of Siena, aged 30.* We
countryfolk, nobles and burghers, laity may compare with this picturesque ap-
and clergy, with bare feet and dressed in parition of Jeronimo in Milan what
white sheets from head to foot," visited Varchi says about the prophets who
the towns and villages of every district haunted Rome like birds of evil omen in
in succession. "On their journey, when the first years of the pontificate of Clem-
they came to a cross-road or to crosses, ent VII. "Not only friars from the pul-
they threw themselves on the ground, pit, but hermits on the piazza, went about
crying' Misericordia!' three times; then preaching and predicting the ruin of Italy
they recited the Lord's Prayer and the and the end of the world with wild cries
Ave Mary. On their entrance into a city, and threats." In 1523 Milan beheld
they walked singing Stabat mater dolo- the spectacle of a parody of the old
rosa and other litanies and prayers. The preachers. 'There appeared a certain
population of the places to which they Frate di San Marco, whom the people
came were divided; for some went forth held for a saint, and who "encouraged
and told those who stayed that they the Milanese against the French, saying
should assume the same habit, so that at it was a merit with Jesus Christ to slay
one time there were as many as ten thou- those Frenchmen, and that they were
sand, and at another as many as fifteen pigs." He seems to have been a feeble
thousand of them." After admitting and ignorant fellow, whose head had
that the fruit of this devotion was in been turned by the examples of Bussolaro
many cases penitence, and amity, and and Savonarola. Again, in 1529, we find
almsgiving, Corio goes on to observe: a certain monk, Tommaso, of the order
"However, men returned to a worse life
than ever after it was over." It is notice-
able that Italy was devastated in 1400 by
a horrible plague; and it is impossible
not to believe that the crowding of so
many penitents together on the highways
and in the cities led to this result.

During the anarchy of Italy between 1494 (the date of the invasion of Charles VIII.) and 1527 (the date of the sack of Rome) the voice of preaching friars and

"Diario Ferrarese." Muratori, xxiv. pp. 17-386.

of St. Dominic, stirring up a great com-
motion of piety in Milan. The city had
been brought to the very lowest state of
misery by the Spanish occupation; and,
strange to say, this friar was himself a
Spaniard. In order to propitiate offend-
ed deities, he organized a procession on
a great scale. Seven hundred women,
five hundred men, and twenty-five hun-

*See "Prato" and "Burigozzo," Arch. Stor. vol,
iii. pp. 357, 431.

↑ Storia Florentina, vol. i. p. 87.
Arch. Stor. vol. iii. p. 443.

dred children, assembled in the cathe remaining within the sphere of their condral. The children were dressed in ceptions, he impressed a rôle, which had white, the men and women in sackcloth, been often played in the chief Italian and all were barefooted. They prome-towns, with the stamp of his peculiar genaded the streets of Milan, incessantly nius. It was a source of weakness to shouting "Misericordia !" and besieged him in his combat with Alexander VI., the Duomo with the same dismal cry, that he could not rise above the monasthe bishop and the municipal authori-tic ideal of the prophet, which prevailed ties of Milan taking part in the devotion.* in Italy, or grasp one of those regenerThese gusts of penitential piety were ative conceptions which formed the momatters of real national importance. tive force of the Reformation. The inWriters imbued with the classic spirit of herent defects of all Italian revivals, the Renaissance thought them worthy of spasmodic in their paroxysms, vehement a place in their philosophical histories. while they lasted, but transient in their Thus we find Pitti, in the "Storia Flo- effects, are exhibited upon a tragic scale rentina" (Arch. Stor. vol. i. p. 112), de- by Savonarola. What strikes us, after scribing what happened at Florence in studying the records of these movements 1514: "There appeared in Santa Croce in Italy, is chiefly their want of true mena Frate Francesco da Montepulciano, tal energy. The momentary effect provery young, who rebuked vice with sever-duced in great cities like Florence, Milan, ity, and affirmed that God had willed to Verona, Pavia, Bologna, and Perugia, is Scourge Italy, especially Florence and quite out of proportion to the slight inRome, in sermons so terrible that the tellectual power exerted by the prophet audience kept crying with floods of tears, in each case. He has nothing really new 'Misericordia!' The whole people was or life-giving to communicate. struck dumb with horror, for those who preaches indeed the duty of repentance could not hear the friar by reason of the and charity, institutes a reform of glaring crowd, listened with no less fear to the moral abuses, and works as forcibly as reports of others. At last he preached a he can upon the imagination of his audisermon so awful that the congregation ence. But he sets no current of fresh stood like men who had lost their senses; thought in motion. Therefore, when his for he promised to reveal upon the third personal influence was once forgotten, be day how and from what source he had left no mark upon the nation he so deepreceived this prophecy. However, when ly agitated. We can only wonder that, in he left the pulpit, worn out and ex-many cases, he obtained so complete an hausted, he was seized with an illness of ascendancy in the political world. All the lungs, which soon put an end to his this is as true of Savonarola as it is of life." Pitti goes on to relate the frenzy San Bernardino. It is this which reof revivalism excited by this monk's moves him so immeasurably from Huss, preaching, which roused all the old mem-from Wesley, and from Luther. ories of Savonarola in Florence. It became necessary for the bishop to put down the devotion by special edicts, while the Medici endeavoured to distract the minds of the people by tournaments and public shows.

J. A. S.

He

From Blackwood's Magazine. ALICE LORRAINE.

A TALE OF THE SOUTH DOWNS.

CHAPTER LVI.

Enough has now been quoted from various original sources to illustrate the feverish recurrences of superstitious panics in Italy during the Middle Ages SIR ROLAND LORRAINE was almost as and the Renaissance. The biography of Savonarola has been purposely omitted. free from superstition as need be. To It will, however, be observed, from what be wholly quit of that romantic element, has been said about John of Vicenza, is a disadvantage still; and excepts a Jacopo del Bussolaro, San Bernardino, neighbour even now from the general Roberto da Lecce, Giovanni della Marca, neighbourly sympathy. Threescore years and Fra Capistrano, that Savonarola was ago, of course, that prejudice was threeby no means an extraordinary phenomenon fold. in Italian history. Combining the methods and the aims of all these men, and

* Burigozzo, pp. 485-489.

The swing of British judgment mainly takes magnetic repulse from whatever the French are rushing after. When they are republican, all of us rally for

throne and constitution. When they have a parliament, we want none. When they are pressed under empire, we are apt to be glad that it serves them right. We know them to be brave and good, lovers of honour, and sensitive; but we cannot get over the line between us and them- and the rest of the world, per

baps.

Whatever might be said, or reasoned, for or against the whole of things, Sir Roland had long made up his mind to be moderate and neutral. He liked everybody to speak his best (according to selfopinion), and he liked to keep out of the way of them all, and relapse into the wiser ages. He claimed his own power to think for himself, as well as the mere right of doing so. And therefore he long had been "heterodox" to earnest, rightminded people.

Sir Roland loved his daughter's quick bright turns of love, and loving passion, when her heart was really moved. A thousand complex moods and longings played around or pierced her then; yet all controlled, or at least concealed, by an English lady's quietude. Alice was so like himself, that he always knew what she would think; and he tried his best to follow the zigzag flash of feminine feeling.

Never the more, however, could he "My dear child," he said at last; shake himself free from the inborn might "something has been too much for you. of hereditary leanings. The traditions Perhaps that foolish fellow's story of this of his house and race had still some mysterious water. A gross exaggeration, power over him, a power increased by doubtless. The finny tribe sticking fast long seclusion, and the love of hearth by the gills in the nest of the woodand home. Therefore, when Trotman pigeon. Marry come up! Let us see was cut off, on his way for his weekly these wonders. The moon is at the full paper, by a great black gliding flood, and to-night; and I hear no rain on the winaghast ran up the Coombe to tell itdows now. Go and fetch my crabstick, Sir Roland, while he smiled, felt strange darling." misgivings creeping coldly.

Alice, a sweet and noble maiden, on the tender verge of womanhood, came to her father's side, and led him to his favourite book-room. She saw that he was at the point of trembling; although he could still command his nerves, unless he began to think of them. Dissembling her sense of all this, she sat by the fire, and waited for him.

'My darling, we have had a very happy time," he began at last to say to her; "you and I for many years, suiting one another."

"To be sure we have, father. And I mean to go on suiting you for many more years yet."

"Oh, may I come with you, papa? Do say yes. I shall lie awake all night, unless I go. The moon is sure to clear the storm off; and I will wrap up so thoroughly."

"But you cannot wrap up your feet, dear child; and the roads are continually flooded now."

"Not on the chalk, papa; never on the chalk, except in the very hollow places. Besides, I will put on my new French clogs. They can't be much less than six inches thick. I shall stand among the deluge high enough for the fish to build their nests on me.

66

Daughter of folly, and no child of mine, go and put your clogs on. We will' Her father saw by the firelight the sad-go out at the eastern door, to arouse no ness in her eyes; and he put some gaiety curiosity." into his own, or tried.

66

As the master and his daughter passed

Lallie, you have brighter things be-beneath the astrologer's tower, and left fore you-a house of your own, and the house by his private entrance, they society, and the grand world, and great could not help thinking of the good old shining." prince, and his kind anxiety about them. To the best of their knowledge, the wise Agasicles had never heard of the Woeburn; or perhaps his mind had been so much engrossed with the comet that he took no heed of it. And even in his

"Excellent things, no doubt, my father; but not to be compared with you and home. Have I done anything to vex you, that you talk like this to me?"

"Let me see.

Come here and show

time, this strange river was legendary as the Hydaspes.

that. But out of many mouths I am convicted. Struan Hales says it; and so does my mother. Hilary seemed to imply it also, at the time when he last was heard of. Mine own household, Trotman, Mrs. Pipkins, and that charitable Mrs. Merryjack, have combined to take the same view of me. There must be truth in it. I cannot make head against such a cloud of witnesses. And now Alice joins them. What more do I want? I must revise my opinion of myself, and confess that I am a hard-hearted

After the heavy and tempestuous rain, the night was fair, as it generally is, even in the worst of weather, when the full moon rises. The long-chined bill, with its level outline stretching towards the south of east, afforded play for the glancing light of a watery and laborious moon. Long shadows, laid in dusky bars, or cast in heavy masses where the hollow land prevailed for them, and misty columns hovering and harbouring over tree-clumps, and gleams of quiet light pursuing ave-man." nues of opening-all of these, at every step of deep descent, appeared to flicker like a great flag waving.

"What a very lovely night! How beautifully the clouds lie!" cried Alice, being apt to kindle rashly into poetry: they softly put themselves in rows, and then they float towards the moon, and catch the silver of her smile-oh why do they do that, papa?"

This question Sir Roland debated with himself, in a manner which had long been growing upon him, in the gathering love of solitude. Being by nature a man with a most extraordinary love of justice, he found it hard (as such rare men do) to be perfectly sure about anything. He always desired to look at a subject from every imaginable outside view, receding (like a lark in the clouds) from ground"Because the wind is west, my dear.ling consideration, yet frankly open (like Take care; you are on a great flint, I fear. You are always cutting your boots

out."

a woodcock roasting) to anything good put under him. Nobody knew him; but he did his best, when he thought of that matter, to know himself.

Now, his daughter allowed him to follow out his meditation quietly; and then Ishe said, as they went down the hill, warily heeding each other's steps

66

"Then how very unsafe to be looking at the moon! Lean on me steadily, if Papa, I beg you particularly to pay you must do that. The hill is slippery no attention whatever to your own opinwith slime on the chalk. You will skate ion, or any other opinion in the world, away to the bottom, and leave me mourn-except perhaps, at least, perhaps ing." Oh, how I should love to skate, if ladies ever could do such a thing! I can slide very nicely, as you know, papa. Don't you think, after all this rain, we are sure to have a nice cold winter?"

"Who can tell, Lallie? I only hope not. You children, with your quick circulation, active limbs, and vigorous lungs, are always longing for frost and snow. But when they come, you get tired of them, within a week at the utmost. But in your selfish spring of life, you forget all the miseries of the poor and old, or even young folk who are poor, and the children starving everywhere. And the price of all food is now most alarming."

"I am sure I meant no harm," said Alice; "one cannot always think of everything. Papa, do you know that you have lately taken to be very hard upon

me?"

"Well now, everybody says that of me," Sir Roland answered, thoughtfully; "I scarcely dreamed that my fault was

"Perhaps that of Alice."

"Quite so, papa. About my own affairs my opinion is of no value; but about yours, and the family in general, it is really-something."

"Wisest of our race, and bravest, you are rushing into the water, darling stop; you have forgotten what we came for. We came to see the Woeburn, and here it is!"

"Is this it? And yesterday I walked across this very place! Oh, what a strange black river !"

As Alice drew suddenly back and shuddered, Sir Roland Lorraine threw his left arm round her, without a word, and looked at her. The light of the full moon fell on her face, through a cleft of jagged margins, and the shadow of a branch that had lost its leaves lay on her breast, and darkened it.

"Why, Lallie, you seem to be quite frightened," her father said, after waiting long; "look up at me, and tell me, dear."