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ART. VI. Itinéraire de Paris à Jerusalem, et de Jerusalem à Paris, &c., par F. A DE CHATEAUBRIAND. 3 Vols. 8vo. Paris. 1811. Imported by De Boffe. Price 11. 16s.

ART. VII. Travels in Greece, Palestine, Egypt, and Barbary, during the Years 1806 and 1807. By F. A. DE CHATEAUBRIAND, translated from the French by Frederick Shoberl. 2 Vols. 8vo. l. 4s. Boards. Colburn. 1811.

BUFFON had prepared the French for seeking the colours of eloquence in objects of natural history: but the Paul and Virginia of Saint-Pierre was the more immediate model of CHATEAUBRIAND's first production; and his Atala rivalled in success the tale which it aspired to resemble. The costume of the desert is always striking to the inhabitant of cities it is new; and it is instructive. How much botany, entomology, and zoology must be studied, to make every flower blossom, every insect crawl, every bird sing, according to reality, in these pictures of such extraordinary regions! How many travellers must be read, in order to put together the materials of their scenery in the due proportions of nature!

but when this is accomplished, by a learned imagination, in the language of eloquence; -when the landscape of mute existence is farther embellished and animated by human beings, who carry the poetic soul of feeling and refinement to the contemplation of the surrounding objects; - the impression of such delineations is over-poweringly great. M. DE CHATEAUBRIAND values so highly the art of excelling in them, that he assigns, as a principal reason for this tour, the desire of learning to describe correctly the local scenery of his Martyrs*. It cannot be added that he has travelled in vain; since in the art of realizing, by means of language, the effects of a picturesquesensibility, he surpasses all his countrymen.

Another distinct feature of this author's mind is an esthetic passion for Christianity. In a nation which could discover only. the ridiculous or the oppressive sides of religion, he has viewed only its beautiful features, and has chosen to become its pane gyrist and its patron. Without being himself apparently a supernaturalist, he sees with acquiescence the gift of miracles exerted by the ecclesiastical historians of his communion, in consecrating to memory those incidents which have influenced the fortunes of the church. His faith has nothing of credulity; it is sympathy with the doctrines of Christianity:—his zeal

*For an account of this work, which Mr. Shoberl terms the writer's master-piece, and which he says is wholly unknown here,' see M. Rev. Vol. 62. N. S. p. 542.

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has nothing of dogmatism; it is the persuasion of feeling and of taste. Through the fine arts, he has learned to venerate the Christian divinities immortalized by Raphael and Michel Angelo through the poets and orators, he is become enamoured of the sentiments which successive ages have cherished as the comforters of woe, the soothers of impatience, and the inspirers of beneficence. In short, M. DE CHATEAUBRIAND, in "the Age of Reason," has undertaken a pilgrimage to the Holy Land, has visited with warm devotion the cradle of European religion, has sought baptism in the very waters of the Jordan, and has obtained the characteristic recompence of being created, by the monks of Jerusalem, a Knight of the Holy Sepulchre.

If the cast of M. DE C.'s eloquence had been acquired, for the purpose of writing travels, it is just such as ought to have been his aim; and if the cast of his religious feelings had been assumed, for the purpose of giving interest to his wanderings in Palestine, it is just such as ought to have been adopted. Hence these volumes produce an effect altogether fascinating and romantic. Those reminiscences of celebrity, those glo rious recollections which leisure and reading supply, throng so regularly on the spot about a scene which was already co loured into distinctness and vivacity, that the impression of reality is almost abated by the very perfection of the delineation. Instead of jostling among the accidents of nature with a common traveller, we seem to float in the balloon of a magician, and to swoop only at the picked scenery, where Nature and Religion have wrought their miracles, or where Beauty and Fame repose. The present travels are ushered in by two introductory me moirs, of which the first respects the historical geography of Athens and Sparta; and the second is devoted to that of Palestine.

Some points of ecclesiastical history are examined: we suspect incorrectness in the proposition at p. 81. that the same Simeon, who succeeded James, as head of the Christian church at Jerusalem, lived to suffer martyrdom under Trajan. He was the son of Gamaliel by the daughter of Cleopas. The account of Simeon's martyrdom, given in the thirty-second chapter of the third book of Eusebius, is a quotation from Hegesippus, which plainly relates to a martyrdom inflicted, under Vespasian, when the house of David (Euseb. Hist. Eccl. III. c.12.) was proscribed. The inference of Eusebius, not the document of Hegesippus, places the event under Trajan, who was no persecutor of Christians; and this rash inference compels Eusebius to ascribe a life of at least one hundred and twenty years to Simeon, whom the Rabbies, on the con APP. REY. VOL. LXVII. trary,

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trary, describe as perishing at the destruction of Jerusalem, in the flower of his age.

The journey of M. CHATEAUBRIAND is divided into three main segments; of which the first relates to Greece, and exactly occupies the first volume. The track is so beaten, that perhaps the recent facts, which throw light on the present state of the government of the country, are the most valuable 'parts. Such is the horrible instance (Vol. i. p. 122.) of the fate of a beautiful young woman, an orphan; who, having been sent by her relatives to Constantinople, came back at the age of eighteen to her native village of Saint-Paul, on the gulf of Argos. She had acquired easy manners, could speak Turkish, French, and Italian, brought home with her a decent competency, and received any passing gentleman-stranger with an hospitality which rendered her virtue suspicious. The inhabitants thought that such a woman was a disgrace, to their town; they therefore murdered her, and went to the Pacha to carry him the price of the blood of a Christian. This atrocious assassination was a fresh topic of conversation in Saint Paul but it was not the murder which was censured, but the avidity of the Pacha, who, instead of accepting the usual compensation, hinted that the youth, beauty, and accomplishments of the deceased warranted him to expect more considerable hush-money.

Argos is in the same state in which Chandler described it in 1756. It shewed traces of declension even in the time of Julian; who pleaded the cause of the country of Agamemnon, and endeavoured to get the rates diminished at which it was assessed to the Olympic games. The widow of a Venetian merchant became sole proprietress of the dominions of Clytemnestra in the middle age, and sold them to the republic for an annuity of 200 ducats and a gratuity of 500. Coronelli has preserved the contract. Every where else, a similar desertion and desolation are observable.

We hasten to the second volume, at the beginning of which the traveller crosses the Archipelago. He missed Troy, by untoward accidents, but visited a part of Natolia which had been rarely explored; forded the Sousonghirli, formerly the Granicus; reached Constantinople; and there embarked with some Greek pilgrims in a vessel which touched at Rhodes, and landed its passengers at Jaffa.

Mount Carmel was the first visible promontory of the Holy Land. The author's approach to Jerusalem is not delineated with all the glow of feeling which bursts from the Christian army in Tasso, but is a lively, picturesque, and impressive sweep of narration. We shall prefer, however, to extract the

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sketch of Bethlehem; a spot which has been less frequently described, and is not less illustrative of important incidents in Scripture-history.-We quote from Mr. Shoberl's translation:

The convent of Bethlehem is connected with the church by a court inclosed with lofty walls. We crossed this court, and were admitted by a small side-door into the church. The edifice is certainly of high antiquity, and, though often destroyed and as often repaired, it still retains marks of its Grecian origin. It is built in the form of a cross. The long nave, or, if you please, the foot of the cross, is adorned with forty-eight columns of the Corinthian order, in four rows. These columns are two feet six inches in diameter at the base, and eighteen feet high, including the base and capital. As the roof of this nave is wanting, the columns support nothing but a frieze of wood, which occupies the place of the architrave and of the whole entablature. Open timber-work rests upon the walls, and rises into the form of a dome, to support a roof that no longer exists, or that perhaps was never finished. The wood-work is said to be of cedar, but this is a mistake. The windows are large, and were formerly adorned with mosaic paintings, and passages from the Bible in Greck and Latin characters, the traces of which are yet visible. Most of these inscriptions are given by Quaresmius. The Abbé Mariti notices, with some acrimony, a mistake of that learned friar in one of the dates: a person of the greatest abilities is liable to error, but he who blazons it without delicacy or politeness, affords a much stronger proof of his vanity than of his knowledge.

The remains of the mosaics to be seen here and there, and some paintings on wood, are interesting to the history of the arts; they in general exhibit figures in full face, upright, stiff, without motion and without shadows: but their effect is majestic, and their character dignified and austere.

The Christian sect of the Arminians is in possession of the nave which I have just described. This nave is separated from the three other branches of the cross by a wall, so that the unity of the edifice is destroyed. When you have passed this wall, you find yourself opposite to the sanctuary, or the choir, which occupies the top of the cross. This choir is raised two steps above the nave. Here is seen an altar dedicated to the Wise Men of the East. On the pavement at the foot of this altar you observe a marble star, which corresponds, as tradition asserts, with the point of the heavens where the miraculous star that conducted the three kings became stationary. So much is certain, that the spot where the Saviour of the world was born, is exactly underneath this marble star in the subterraneous church of the manger, of which I shall presently have occasion to speak. The Greeks occupy the choir of the Magi, as well as the two other naves formed by the transom of the cross. These last are empty, and without altars.

• Two spiral staircases, each composed of fifteen steps, open on the sides of the outer church, and conduct to the subterraneous church situated beneath this choir. This is the ever-to-be revered place of the nativity of our Saviour. Before I entered it, the superior put a Kk 2

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taper into my hand, and repeated a brief exhortation. This sacred crypt is irregular, because it occupies the irregular site of the stable and the manger. It is thirty-seven feet six inches long, eleven feet three inches broad, and nine feet in height. It is hewn out of the rock; the sides of the rock are faced with beautiful marble, and the floor is of the same material. These embellishments are ascribed to St. Helena. The church receives no light from without, and is illumined by thirty-two lamps, sent by different princes of Christendom. At the farther extremity of this crypt, on the east side, is the spot where the Virgin brought forth the Redeemer of mankind. This spot is marked by a white marble, incrusted with jasper, and surrounded by a circle of silver, having rays resembling those with which the sun is represented. Around it are inscribed these words: HIC DE VIRGINE MARIA

'JESUS CHRISTUS NATUS EST.

A marble table, which serves for an altar, rests against the side of the rock, and stands over the place where the Messiah came into the world. This altar is lighted by three lamps, the handsomest of which was given by Louis XIII.

At the distance of seven paces towards the south, after you have passed the foot of one of the stair-cases leading to the upper church, you find the manger. You go down to it by two steps, for it is not upon a level with the rest of the crypt. It is a low recess, hewn out of the rock. A block of white marble, raised about a foot above the floor, and hollowed in the form of a manger, indicates the very spot where the Sovereign of Heaven was laid upon straw.

Two paces farther, opposite to the manger, stands an altar, which occupies the place where Mary sat when she presented the Child of Sorrows to the adoration of the Magi.

Nothing can be more pleasing, or better calculated to excite sentiments of devotion, than this subterraneous church. It is adorned with pictures of the Italian and Spanish schools. These pictures represent the mysteries of the place, the Virgin and Child after Raphael, the Annunciation, the Adoration of the Wise Men, the coming of the Shepherds, and all those miracles of mingled grandeur and innocence. The usual ornaments of the manger are of blue satin embroi dered with silver. Incence is continually smoking before the cradle of the Saviour. I have heard an organ, touched by no ordinary hand, play, during mass, the sweetest and most tender tunes of the best Italian composers. These concerts charm the Christian Arab, who, leaving his camels to feed, repairs like the shepherds of old to Bethlehem, to adore the King of Kings in his manger. I have seen this inhabitant of the desert communicate at the altar of the Magi, with a fervour, a piety, a devotion unknown among the Christians of the west. "No place in the world," says Father Neret, "excites more profound devotion. The continual arrival of caravans from all the nations of Christendom; the public prayers; the prostrations; nay, even the richness of the presents sent hither by the Christian princes, altogether produce feelings in the soul which it is much easier to conceive than to describe."

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