lieve Mr. Carlile to be an honest enthusiast, and to award him the meed of respect due to that character: erudition and science are not necessary constituents in the formation of a bold, honest innovator, nor were the ancient propagators of new doctrines eminent for those qualifications. Still to such men is the world indebted for various important benefits. S. C. prepared to deny the influence of gold; but in candour let us compare the loss with the gain, not only of property, but of liberty and health, and judge on which side the balance stands; let it be remembered also, that many of the most renowned Christian martyrs lived by the diffusion of their opinions, yet who, for that reason, presumes to tax their honesty? I confess I see much to respect in this devoted family and much to compassionate; whether their opinions are taken upon true or erroneous grounds does not abate that respect and compassion a tittle, and I cannot discover the slightest reason for suspecting their sincerity. My estimate of Mr. Carlile is founded in part GLEANINGS; OR, SELECTIONS AND on a circumstance which truth and A justice require should be known. day or two previous to his trial it came to my knowledge accidentally that the tradesman with whom he had served his apprenticeship, and I believe worked for some time afterwards, was a resident in my own neighbourhood, and that he had spoken highly of his integrity. Feeling the force of the Christian precept, (do as you would have others do to you,) I waited on this person in the expectation that a good character might be of service to Mr. Carlile on his trial, and received the following account as near as I can recollect : "During the many years Carlile was with me, I found him an honest, faithful servant; the hours of business were early and late, but he never failed in diligence and industry, and although we did not always agree, I never had the slightest reason to suspect him of a falsehood." He attended the trial at my request, and his evidence was to the same effect. Of this man's religious and political opinions I am in total ignorance to this day, and of Mr. Carlile I had no other personal knowledge previously to his trial than once seeing him in his shop; but to this day I have never heard of an attack on his moral character, which certainly would not have escaped the virulence of his persecutors had it been vulnerable. I do not hesitate, therefore, to be P.S. I am just told that another sister of Carlile has undertaken to carry on the business of the shop, which is still open. REFLECTIONS MADE IN A COURSE No. CCCLXXXIV. Anecdote of Judge Jeffries. (From Chatterton's Works, by Southey, 3 vols. 8vo. 1803, III. 93.) A few months before the abdication of the dastardly tyrant James II., Lord Chancellor Jeffries, of detested memory, went to Arundel, in Sussex, in order to influence an election. He took his residence at the castle, and went the day fixed for the election to the Town-hall, where Mr. Peckham, who was then mayor of Arundel, held his court. Jeffries had the imprudence to shew his bloody face there : the mayor ordered him to withdraw immediately; and in case of refusal threatened to have him committed. the guardian of our laws, and of our "You," said he, "who ought to be sacred constitution, shall not so auThis is my daciously violate them. court, and my jurisdiction here is above yours." Jeffries, who was not willing to perplex still more the king's affairs, and to enrage the populace, retired immediately. The next morning he invited Peckham to breakfast with him, which he accepted; but he had the courage to scorn to take a place, which the merciless executioner offered him. (Taken from the records of the town of Arundel.) REVIEW. "Still pleased to praise, yet not afraid to blame."-POPE. ART. I.-History of the Persecutions endured by the Protestants of the South of France, and more especi ally of the Department of the Gard, during the years 1814, 1815, 1816 &c. Including a Defence of their Conduct from the Revolution to the present Period. By Mark Wilks. 2 vols. 8vo. pp. 626. With a Map. Longman and Co., and Westley. 1821. 0% UR former volumes (XI. and XII.) have registered both the persecutions of the French Protestants and the generous efforts of the Protestant Dissenters of England, at the instance of the Ministers of the Three Denominations, for their relief; and our readers cannot have forgotten that attempts were then made to throw suspicion upon the statements of the Dissenting Ministers, and even to expose them to political reproach for their interference. The Duke of Wellington wrote a letter to justify the French government at the very moment that the department of the Gard was reeking with Protestant blood; [Mon. Repos. XI. 58;] Lord Castlereagh palliated the enormities of the Catholics, and maintained, in order to disparage Sir Samuel Romilly's too forward humanity, that not more than 300 persons had been murdered, at Nismes, and not more than 1000 in the neighbourhood, and that the victims had been unfriendly to the legitimate government of the descendants *The present editor of the New (or Mock) Times wrote a series of articles in the Times to counteract the efforts of the Dissenting Ministers, whom, in allusion to their being of Three Denominatious, he characterized as "the treblefaced rogues." This writer had the boldness at one time to question the fact of the persecution, and the cruelty at another to represent the Protestants as entitled to no compassion on account of their political predilections. He has always claimed, nevertheless, the distinction, par excellence, of a friend of religion and social order! of Louis XIV.; [see the Debate, Mon. Repos. XI. 357 and 428;] and Mons. Marron, as the head of the Protestants of Paris, wrote an official letter to the Dissenting Ministers disclaiming and rebuking their unnecessary and mischievous interposition, enclosed in a private one to the editor of this work, in which he stated that the French Protestants were consoled and gratified by that very interposition, and that the result was likely to be very beneficial. [Mon. Repos. X. 780, XI. 59, 229 and 180.] Then Truth is the daughter of Time, and not many months had elapsed before the persecution was universally allowed, and the only object of the friends of the Bourbons was to vindicate them from the charge of exciting or conniving at the foul deeds that could no longer be concealed. With what success they pleaded, may be determined by Miss Williams's specious pamphlet. [Mon. Repos. XI. 228, &c.] came the Eulogium of M. Benj. Constant on Sir Samuel Romilly, in the Royal Athenæum of Paris, pronounced at the end of the year 1818, in which he asserted the truth of the representations made by the English Dissenting Ministers, and ascribed to them and Sir Samuel Romilly the cessation of the horrors that had so long stamped the South of France with infamy. At first, the Chamber of Deputies would not permit any Frenchman to name the atrocities perpetrated at Nismes; the mention of them was an act of disloyalty; but in the course of time, the Protestants received the poor satisfaction of having their sufferings acknowledged and detailed in legislative speeches and official documents. Power may thus triumph for a time over humanity and truth, but the latter will in the end prevail and overwhelm their impotent enemies with ignominy. În order to lay a sure foundation for their proceedings, the Dissenting Ministers deputed Mr. Clement Perrot, an intelligent and respectable minister of their persuasion in the Island of Guernsey, on a mission to France, that amongst the Protestants them selves and in the spot where the persecution raged he might ascertain the true state of affairs. With great labour and at no small risk, he visited Nismes and the neighbourhood, and his report, on his return, shewed that but a small part of the outrages committed upon the Protestants was known to the European public. To obtain further particulars at a later period, and also to superintend the distribution of the fund raised for the persecuted, Mr. Wilks likewise made a journey to the South of France, under sanction of the committee of Dissenting Ministers. His information corroborated Mr. Perrot's report, and the interval between their visits had allowed the suffering Protestants to make a more ample and correct estimate of their losses and bereavements. It was at first intended to present to the public, Mr. Perrot's report with Mr. Wilks's corrections and additions, and the work was carried some way through the press; but the difficulty of blending two reports into an uniform narration, led the committee to abandon the design, and to commit the manuscripts and papers to Mr. Wilks's hands, with a request that he would, in his own name and on his own responsibility, lay before the public a connected history of the persecution. This was the origin of the work, the title of which stands at the head of this article; and it is but just to the author to say, that he has executed his laborious task with much ability, and we doubt not also with entire faithfulness. His preciseness as to names, dates and places, numbers of persons and sums of money, vouches for his accuracy, since it furnishes opponents with the ready means of detecting mistakes and exposing misrepresentations. He might have made the work more interesting, if he had not adhered to that dryness of detail which is the best pledge of its authenticity. He purposely keeps down his own political opinions, though it is impossible that he should have hidden from the reader his views with regard to the secret influence which in spite of royal proclamations and official assurances continued for so long a time to fan the fire of persecution; all Europe in the mean while crying shame upon the country in which such wickedness was suffered to rage almost unobstructed. The narrative of the principal facts is precise though animated, and there are passages glowing with the strong feeling on behalf of injured freedom and humanity that is so natural to an Englishman, and especially an English Protestant Dissenter. Mr. Wilks's avowed design is to relate and establish the fact of the persecution, and to prove that it was religious and not, as has been pretended, a political persecution. In both these points he has succeeded: but we must refer the reader to the work itself for satisfaction, not being able to lay before him more than a few striking particulars and some interesting extracts. The "History" commences with a view of the condition of the Protestants of France from the Revocation of the Edict of Nantes to the Revolution. This is a dark and melancholy picture. The reader inquires whether he be really perusing the story of Europe in the 18th century, when he surveys the account (pp. 4-6) of "twenty-four innocent females, who, seized in their youth, had passed, some of them, twenty years between the walls of the Tour de Constance"! Persecution produced its usual effect upon the objects of it; and we fear that the period in question must be reckoned the brightest in the annals of our French Protestant brethren. In vain shall we now look amongst them for that firmness of principle and that unconquerable spirit which they displayed when they were one day occupied in concealing themselves from the king's dragoons, and the next employed in finding out their brethren in some desert or cave, for the sake of enjoying the consolations of Christian worship. It was not till the Revolution began to dawn, that the Protestants had a legal existence in France. The way had been prepared for their emancipation by the efforts of Turgot, Malesherbes, Rulhières, and Bretueil; but to the Marquis de la Fayette, yet living in a venerable age to enjoy the honours due to half a century of generous labours in the cause of liberty We do not distinguish the volumes, as the paging runs through both. in both hemispheres, the happy event is to be ascribed. After many conferences with the Protestants, and particularly with the lamented Rabaut St. Etienne, he brought forward in the Assembly of the Notables, an address to the King in their favour, which was followed by an edict of toleration, the registering of which was accompanied by "the tears of the fanatics and the declamation of Despremenil, who apostrophized, rather in anger than with piety, the crucifix which adorned the chamber of their sitting." (P. 20.) The Protestants hailed the Revolution as the epoch of their complete deliverance, but they appear not as a body to have taken any active share in it. As, however, their enemies and those of liberty were the same, they were from the beginning contemplated in all the intrigues carried on by the Royalists in the South of France. A civil war was begun by the priests and the accredited agents of members of the Bourbon family, and had not the new government promptly interfered, the same scenes would have been acted in the year 1790, that we have seen four and twenty years afterwards. It is remarkable that the very individuals that have figured in the recent persecutions, were the agitators of the troubles of the former period. One of these, Froment, to remind the present dynasty of his services, or rather to reproach them for their ingratitude, has published a memoir of his attempts, for a quarter of a century, to convulse the South of France with religious dissensions. He has given to the world copies of the in-. structions under which he acted, signed by the hands of the Bourbons, and nothing is now wanted to set in a true light the principles on which those princes wish to govern, and the character of the late persecution in the department of the Gard. Others of * This sanguinary ruffian was, before the Revolution, receiver to the Chapter of the Cathedral of Nismes, an office to which, in reward no doubt of good services, he has been restored. He avows that he was a pensioner on the British government up to the period of the Restoration; and he, or his partisans, were on one occasion served with ammunition from the British fleet in the Mediferranean, to enable them, (as the event these worthy Catholics were preparing themselves for service, in the interval between the two commotions, by first practising as furious Jacobins at the guillotine, and by then employing themselves as tools of Buonaparte in enforcing the conscription and the other bad measures of his reign. When Louis XVIII. re-entered France in 1814, in the rear of the allied armies, these savages set about the work for which they had been in training. They caused to be carried to the foot of the throne, the declaration, which the king did not disdain to accept, that there must be in France but One God, one King, and one Faith." The fooleries of Popery were exhibited in open day to inflame the zeal of the populace; and the conspirators of Nismes engaged the people of that city to make a solemn vow of dedicating to God a silver child, if the Duchess d'Angoulême should prove the mother of a boy. Monsieur, the King's brother, made a visit at this period to Nismes, and smiled upon the Protestants, while they who have since boasted of having been in correspondence with him were plotting their destruction: and our author states it as "a curious fact, that however kind the disposition evinced, and the more powerful the protection promised on these royal visits, the enemies of the Protestants invariably became more hostile, more furious and more audacious" after them. (Pp. 120, 121.) At this juncture, the monsters of 1790 gathered mobs and warned the Protestants of their doom by inscriptions on shewed,) to pursue their pious project of exterminating Protestant heretics: yet this protégé of Mr. Pitt's says, in one of his recent publications, "For more than twenty years I have maintained, that it was not in Paris, but in London and Petersburgh, that the foundations of every throne were sapped, and the fetters for every nation forged, and this, even when an opinion prevailed that jacobinism would make the tour of the world; that there was always a design to ravish from the Bourbons the crown of their ancestors, and to dismember our unhappy country; and, unhappily for Europe, from Pitt to Castlereagh, the English ministers have not had intentions more noble, more profound, or more humanc than the Jacobins." P. 53. the walls, effigies, insults in the streets, brutal cries under their windows and obscene and sanguinary songs at the doors of their temples. Every thing portended an explosion of fanatic fury, when Napoleon again appeared upon the stage. This was a critical state of things for the Protestants, but they acted with uniform and signal prudence, and if in any thing they shewed weakness, it was in their indifference to public affairs. They were the last to renounce and the first to welcome again the Bourbons; and, secure in their innocence, they took the good that was before them, like the lamb that "riot dooms to bleed:" "Pleased to the last, he crops the flow'ry food, And licks the hand just raised to shed his blood." In the quick and disorderly changes of dynasty, some outrages were committed by the military or upon them, and these were at once charged upon the Protestants, many of whom suffered under accusations now admitted to have been unjust. Stronger testimony to their innocence cannot be adduced than was presented to the Chamber of Deputies, in a debate on a petition relating to this affair, April 25, 1820. "On that occasion M. St. Aulaire, one of the deputies from the department of the Gard, the father-in-law-of M. Decazes, and in constant and intimate relations with his Majesty Louis XVIII., made the following declaration : "When the crimes of 1815 were com mitted, a general sentiment of indignation ought to have been expressed against such atrocities; but the party of which I speak, pretended, for a long time, to deny their existence, and endeavoured to have it believed, that the crimes of 1815 were only the effect of the reprisals of cruelties committed in the 100 days. This allegation is destroyed by facts. During the 100 days, not a drop of blood was shed in the department of the Gard. I mistake; three volunteers were massacred at Arpaillargues, but they were killed with arms in their hands, and contending also against an armed force, I do not pretend to say that there is a conspiracy, but there is a sort of league, and I employ this word, because it describes, to the life, the state of the department." -P. 163, Note. The re-establishment of the authority of the Bourbons at Nismes was the signal for the brutal persecutors to seize their prey. They began with wounding or killing two hundred unarmed soldiers, and having gone from house to house, taking away arms from the Protestants, they considered themselves ready for their great work. The detail of the horrors that ensued fills many pages: we can give only a specimen or two : murder at St. Cézaire, adjoining Nismes. "Another party committed a dreadful Imbert dit La Plume, the husband of Suzon Chivas, afraid for his life, had retired to this village, where he hoped he might safely take refuge with a relation. His security was, however, of short duration. On the 17th or 18th of July he He was met, on returning from work in the fields, by one of the bands who were spreading death and devastation. was immediately seized, and treated with the greatest brutality. He implored mercy, and threw himself before the captain, entreating him to spare his life. The chief promised him protection, and assured him that he should be safely conducted to the prison of Nismes. Imbert readily consented to follow; but it was he saw that they were determined to in vain; their ill-usage continued, and kill him. He was a powerful and courageous man, and resuming his natural character, he advanced, and exclaimed, You are brigands, fire! Four of them dead, and while living they mutilated his fired, and he fell; but he was not yet body, and then, passing a cord round it, they drew it along, attached to a cannon, of which they had possession; and thus, his head striking against the brass, the poor wretch endured, before he expired, Prad, Sauve, Combe, and Milanès of the most frightful tortures. Monnet, Bernis, were the assassins. his relatives were apprized of his death. "It was not till after eight days that His widow then went to Cézaire, to gain information, and reclaim the body, but she learned that a worthy proprietor of the village had kindly given it sepulture. of which Imbert was a member, have "The miseries of the family of Chivas, revolted all France. Five individuals of this family, all husbands and fathers, were massacred in the course of a few days; and they furnish a specimen of the crimes and horrors with which Nismes widows of these murdered Protestants in was so long visited. I saw the five their habiliments of mourning. I heard their sobs, and witnessed their tears and anguish, as they related to me, with all the minuteness and emotion of recent |