have been often observed. The asperity of national prejudice was softened, and the community of religion and arms spread a similar colour and generous emulation over the face of Christendom.

Abroad in enterprise and pilgrimage, at home in martial exercise, the warriors of every country were perpetually associated, and impartial taste must prefer a Gothic tournament to the Olympic games of classic antiquity. Instead of the naked spectacles which corrupted the manners of the Greeks, and banished from the stadium the virgins and matrons, the pompous decoration of the list was crowned with the presence of chaste and high-born beauty, from whose hands the conqueror received the prize of his dexterity and courage. The skill and strength that were exerted in wrestling and boxing, bear a distant and doubtful relation to the merit of a soldier; but the tournaments, as they were invented in France, and eagerly adopted both in the east and west, presented a lively image of the business of the field. The single combats, the general skirmish, the defence of a pass or a castle, were rehearsed as in actual service; and the contest, both in real and mimic war, was decided by the superior management of the horse and lance. The lance was the proper and peculiar weapon of the knight; his horse was of a large and heavy breed-but this charger, till he was aroused by the approaching danger, was usually led by an attendant, and he quietly rode a pad or palfrey of a more easy pace. His helmet and sword, his greaves and buckler, it would be superfluous to describe; but I may remark, that at the period of the Crusades, the armour was less ponderous than in later times; and that, instead of a massy cuirass, his breast was defended by a hauberk or coat of mail.

When their long lances were fixed in the rest, the warriors furiously spurred their horses against the foe, and the light cavalry of the Turks and Arabs could seldom stand against the direct and impetuous weight of their charge. Each knight was attended to the field by his faithful squire, a youth of equal birth and similar hopes; he was followed by his archers and men-at-arms, and four, or five, or six soldiers were computed as the furniture of a complete lance. In the expeditions to the neighbouring kingdoms of the Holy Land, the duties of the feudal tenure no longer subsisted; the voluntary service of the knights and their followers was either prompted by zeal or attachment, or purchased with rewards and promises; and the numbers of each squadron were measured by the power, the wealth, and the fame of each independent chieftain. They were distinguished by his banner, his armorial coat, and his cry of war; and the most ancient families of Europe must seek

in these achievements the origin and proof of their nobility.GIBBON'S 'Roman Empire.'

1. Charlemagne flourished in the end of the eighth century; the First Crusade took place in 1095, and the last was finished in 1221.

2. Peer, probably the same as pair, means an equal in rank.

If we compare, at the era of the Crusades, the Latins of Europe with the Greeks and Arabians, their respective degrees of knowledge, industry and art, our rude ancestors must be content with the third rank in the scale of nations. Their successive improvement and present superiority may be ascribed to a peculiar energy of character, to an active and imitative spirit, unknown to their more polished rivals, who at that time were in a stationary or retrograde state. With such a disposition, the Latins should have derived the most early and essential benefits from a series of events which opened to their eyes the prospect of the world, and introduced them to a long and frequent intercourse with the more cultivated regions of the East.

The first and most obvious progress was in trade and manufactures, in the arts which are strongly prompted by the thirst of wealth, the calls of necessity, and the gratification of the sense of vanity. Among the crowd of unthinking fanatics, a captive or a pilgrim might sometimes observe the superior refinements of Cairo and Constantinople; the first importer of windmills was the benefactor of nations; and if such blessings are enjoyed without any grateful remembrance, history has condescended to notice the more apparent luxuries of silk and sugar, which were transported into Italy from Greece and Egypt.

But the intellectual wants of the Athenians were more slowly felt and supplied; the ardour of studious curiosity was awakened in Europe by different causes and more recent events; and, in the age of the Crusades, they viewed with careless indifference the literature of the Greeks and Arabians: some rudiments of mathematical and medicinal knowledge might be imparted in practice and in figures; necessity might produce some interpreters for the grosser business of merchants and soldiers; but the commerce of the Orientals had not dif

fused the study and knowledge of their languages in the schools of Europe. If a similar principle of religion repulsed the idiom of the Koran, it should have excited their patience and curiosity to understand the original text of the gospel; and the same grammar would have unfolded the sense of Plato and the beauties of Homer. Yet in a reign of sixty years the Latins of Constantinople disdained the speech and learning of their subjects, and the manuscripts were the only treasures which the natives might enjoy without rapine or envy.

Each

Aristotle was indeed the oracle of the western universities, but it was a barbarous Aristotle; and, instead of ascending to the fountain head, his Latin votaries humbly accepted a corrupt and remote version from the Jews and Moors of Andalusia. The principle of the Crusades was a savage fanaticism; and the most important effects were analogous to the cause. pilgrim was ambitious to return with his sacred spoils, the relics of Greece and Palestine; and each relic was preceded and followed by a train of miracles and visions. The belief of the Catholics was corrupted by new legends, their practice by new superstitions; and the establishment of the Inquisition, the mendicant orders of monks and friars, the last abuse of indulgences, and the final progress of idolatry, flowed from the baneful fountain of the holy war. The active spirit of the Latins preyed on the vitals of their reason and religion; and if the ninth and tenth centuries were the times of darkness, the thirteenth and fourteenth were the age of absurdity and fable.

In the profession of Christianity, in the cultivation of a fertile land, the northern conquerors of the Roman empire insensibly mingled with the provincials, and rekindled the embers of the arts of antiquity. Their settlements, about the age of Charlemagne, had acquired some degree of order and stability, when they were overwhelmed by new swarms of invaders, the Normans, Saracens, and Hungarians, who replunged the western countries of Europe into their former state of anarchy and barbarism. About the eleventh century, the second tempest had subsided by the expulsion or conversion of the enemies of Christendom: the tide of civilization, which had so long ebbed, began to flow with a steady and accelerated course, and a fairer prospect was opened to the hopes and efforts of the rising generations. Great was the increase and rapid the progress, during the two hundred years of the Crusades; and some philosophers have applauded the propitious influence of these holy wars, which appear to me to have checked rather than forwarded the maturity of Europe. The lives and labours of millions, which were buried in the East, would have been more profitably employed in the improvement

of their native country: the accumulated stock of industry and wealth would have overflowed in navigation and trade; and the Latins would have been enriched and enlightened by a pure and friendly correspondence with the climates of the East.

In one respect I can indeed perceive the accidental operation of the Crusades, not so much in producing a benefit as in removing an evil. The larger portion of the inhabitants of Europe were chained to the soil without freedom or property, or knowledge; and the two orders of ecclesiastics and nobles, whose numbers were comparatively small, alone deserved the name of citizens and men. This oppressive system was supported by the arts of the clergy and the swords of the barons. The authority of the priests operated in the darker ages as a salutary antidote; they prevented the total extinction of letters, mitigated the fierceness of the times, sheltered the poor and defenceless, and preserved or revived the peace and order of civil society. But the independence, rapine, and discord of the feudal lords were unmixed with any semblance of good; and every hope of industry and improvement was crushed by the iron weight of the martial aristo

cracy.

Among the causes that undermined that Gothic edifice, a conspicuous place must be allowed to the Crusades. The estates of the barons were dissipated, and their race was often extinguished in these costly and perilous expeditions. Their poverty extorted from their pride those charters of freedom which unlocked the fetters of the slave, secured the farm of the peasant and the shop of the artificer, and gradually restored a substance and a soul to the most numerous and useful part of the community. The conflagration which destroyed the tall and baren trees of the forest gave air and scope to the vegetation of the smaller and nutritive plants of the soil.-GIBBON'S 'Roman Empire.'

THE COUNCIL OF CLERMONT.

"AND shall," the Pontiff asks, "profaneness flow
From Nazareth, source of Christian piety;

From Bethlehem, from the Mounts of Agony
And glorified Ascension? Warriors, go,

With prayers and blessings we your path will sow;
Like Moses hold our hands erect, till ye

Have chased far off by righteous victory,
These sons of Amalek, or laid them low!"

"GOD WILLETH IT," the whole assembly cry;

Shout which the enraptured multitude astounds!
The Council-roof and Clermont's tower reply :-
"GOD WILLETH IT," from hill to hill rebounds,
And, in awe-stricken countries far and nigh,
Through "Nature's hollow arch" that voice resounds.'

WORDSWORTH.

1 The decision of this council was believed to be instantly known in remote parts of Europe.

A LITTLE after midnight the joyful sound of land! land! was heard from. the Pinta, which kept always ahead of the other ships. But having been so often deceived by fallacious appearances, every man was now become slow of belief, and waited, in all the anguish of uncertainty and impatience, for the return of day. As soon as morning dawned, all doubts and fears were dispelled. From every ship an island was seen about two leagues to the north, whose flat and verdant fields, well stored with wood and watered with many rivulets, presented the aspect of a delightful country. The crew of the Pinta instantly began the Te Deum, as a hymn of thanksgiving to God, and were joined by those of the other ships, with tears of joy and transports of congratulation. This office of gratitude to heaven was followed by an act of justice to their commander. They threw themselves at the feet of Columbus, with feelings of self-condemnation mingled with reverence. They implored him to pardon their ignorance, incredulity, and insolence, which had created him so much unnecessary disquiet, and had so often obstructed the prosecution of his well-concerted plan; and passing, in the warmth of the admiration, from one extreme to another, they now pronounced the man, whom they had so lately reviled and threatened, to be a person inspired by heaven with sagacity and fortitude more than human, in order to accomplish a design so far beyond the ideas and conception of all former ages.

As soon as the sun arose, all their boats were manned and armed. They rowed towards the island with their colours displayed, with warlike music, and other martial pomp. As they approached the coast, they saw it covered with a multitude of people, whom the novelty of the spectacle had drawn together, whose attitudes and gestures expressed wonder and astonishment at the strange objects which presented themselves to their view.