was indeed allowed to a general reputation of innocence or guilt, but extraneous evidence can never have been excluded, though we have no means of ascertaining by what steps, or at what times, the ancient ordeal and trial by combat were superseded. It is only when changes were nearly consummated in practice in those ages, that they were authorised by statute; their progress can usually be traced only by incidental evidence or allusion. It appears, however, that by the time of Edw. III. the distinction between the witness and the juror who was to decide on his credibility was fully established. Yet even after this time, as late, according to Mr. Amos, as the reigns of Edw. VI. and Mary, jurors are often called testes, as if they still were allowed or even required to frame their verdict according to their own knowledge as well as the evidence laid before them. The exhortation now so common, to lay aside every impression received before entering the jury-box, is equally modern in spirit and in letter. The first description Mr. Hallam has found of a jury in the sense in which we understand the word-twelve good and true men, who after hearing the counsel on both sides and the witnesses whom they choose to produce, confer together till they agree in a verdict on the issue joined between the parties-is in Fortescue's Laudes Legum Angliæ, which is not older than 1450. The result of the investigation which has been instituted is to sweep away from the ancient constitution of England what has always been considered both the best pledge of its freedom and the distinctive type of its organization, trial by jury in the modern sense of the word and according to modern functions. Mr. Hallam however justly observes that "in its most imperfect form, the trial by a sworn inquest was far superior to the impious superstition of ordeals, the hardly less preposterous and unequal duel, the unjust deference to power in compurgation, when the oath of one thane counterbalanced those of six ceorls, and even to the free-spirited but tumultuary and unenlightened decisions of the hundred or the county." The history of the gradual changes by which it has been adapted to the wants of successive ages, till little but the name remains, is a curious proof of the reverence for ancient forms and words, combined with a steady endeavour after practical improvement, which characterizes the English mind. different The wisdom of our ancestors was shown in a very course from that which it is often invoked to justify; and when it shall be appealed to, as it soon may be, to uphold what Mr. Hallam calls "that preposterous relic of barbarism, the requirement of unanimity in a jury," let it be recollected how little of a blind deference they showed towards the wisdom of their ancestors. There remains a question of much higher interest than all which we have hitherto touched upon-a question which involves our whole philosophy of history, and our views of the Providence of God. We confess ourselves to have grown up in the belief, that the Middle Ages were Dark Ages, times of ignorance which God winked at, using them as other things evil in themselves for the production of eventual good. Mr. Hallam's motto is a proof that his view of them was the same. Ἐκ Χάεος δ' Ερεβός τε μέλαινά τε Νύξ ἐγένοντο The modern doctrine is the reverse; it is we who are walking in darkness and fast tending towards Chaos, and if we desire order in the social state or true light in religion, must return if we can to the condition of the calumniated Middle Ages. We opened this volume of Mr. Hallam's Δευτεραι Φροντίδες with considerable curiosity to see if the altered language which is common in the society in which he moves had produced any effect upon him. He is certainly disposed to speak less harshly of the Church of the Middle ages and almost fears that he has written in too Protestant a spirit on this subject. The difference, however, is only such as time usually produces in moderating the severity of earlier judgments; he is not disposed to call their superstitions religion, or their crimes virtues, but only to admit that he may heretofore have looked too exclusively at the superstition and undervalued the religion which was associated with it. His high admiration of Guizot, who has judged the Catholic Church in so candid and liberal a spirit, would alone have led to some modification of his language. But as to the general character of the Middle Ages, his convictions remain the same, and we cannot conclude our extracts more appropriately than by a passage in which he criticizes a wellknown attempt to exalt them above modern times : "A considerable impression has been made on the predisposed by the Letters on the Dark Ages which we owe to Dr. Maitland. Nor is this by any means surprising; both because the predisposed are soon convinced, and because the Letters are written with great ability, accurate learning, and a spirited and lively pen, and consequently with a success in skirmishing warfare which many readily mistake for the gain of a pitched battle. The result of my own reflections is that everything which Dr. M. asserts as matter of fact, I do not say suggests in all his language, may be perfectly true, without affecting the great proposition that the ages from the sixth to the eleventh were ages of ignorance. Nor does he, as far as I collect, attempt to deny this evident truth; it is merely his object to prove that they were less ignorant, less dark, and in all points of view less worthy of condemnation, than many suppose. I do not gainsay this, being aware, as I have observed both in this and in another work, that the mere ignorance of these ages, striking as it is in comparison with earlier and later times, has been sometimes exaggerated; and that Europeans and particularly Christians, could not fall back into the absolute barbarism of the Esquimaux. But what a man of profound learning puts forward with limitations, sometimes expressed and always present to his own mind, a heady and shallow retailer takes up and exaggerates in conformity with his own prejudices. "The Letters on the Dark Ages relate principally to the theological attainments of the clergy during that period which the author assumes rather singularly to extend from A. D. 800 to 1200; thus excluding midnight from his definition of darkness, and replacing it by break of day. And in many respects, especially as to the knowledge of the Vulgate Scriptures possessed by the better informed clergy, he obtains no very difficult victory over those who have formed extravagant notions, both as to the ignorance of the Sacred Writings in those times and the desire to keep them from the people. This latter prejudice is obviously derived from a confusion of the subsequent period, the centuries preceding the Reformation, with those which we have immediately before us. But as the word dark is commonly used, either in reference to the body of the laity or to the general extent of liberal studies in the church, and as it involves a comparison with prior or subsequent ages, it cannot be improper in such a sense, even if the manuscripts of the Bible should have been as common in monasteries as Dr. Maitland supposes; and yet his proofs seem much too doubtful to sustain that hypothesis. "I shall conclude by remarking that one is a little tempted to inquire, why so much anxiety is felt by the advocates of the Mediæval Church, to rescue her from the charge of ignorance. For this ignorance she was not generally speaking to be blamed. It was no crime of the clergy that the Huns burned their churches and the Normans pillaged their monasteries. It was not by their means that the Saracens shut up the supply of papyrus, and that sheepskins bore a great price. Europe was altogether decayed in intellectual character, partly in consequence of the barbarian incursions, partly of other sinister influences. We certainly owe to the Church every spark of learning which then glimmered and which she preserved through that darkness, to rekindle the light of a happier age."-P. 394. We think we could help Mr. Hallam to a reason, if he is really at a loss for one, why Puseyite clergymen are unwilling that the Church of the Middle Ages should bear the imputation of ignorance. Whether Dr. Maitland have or have not renounced the name of Protestant he is certainly of a school which exalts Church authority to Dictatorship in religion. Now though men are ready to be led blindfold they must believe that their guides see; and will not long submit to take their standard of faith and morals from an age notoriously inferior in knowledge to their own. Hence the efforts of such writers as Dr. Maitland in his Letters and Mr. Digby in his Mores Catholici to remove the imputations under which the Middle Ages have laboured. Mr. Hallam has not noticed one of the gravest of these imputations and the best founded-the hostility of the Medieval Church to freedom of thought and intellectual progress. She called her own darkness light, and persecuted those who were endeavouring to kindle a better light. And this offence against the truth cannot be compensated by the longest list of schools founded, or libraries collected, or men advanced for their learning to high stations in the Church. It may be an exaggeration to say that she hated knowledge, but she certainly loved spiritual power better than knowledge. ART. IV.-MISS MARTINEAU'S EASTERN LIFE. Eastern Life, Present and Past. By Harriet Martineau. Three vols. London: Moxon. 1848. WE are somewhat late in our notice of this clever and interesting book. It is of rather a miscellaneous character, and presents itself to us under a threefold aspect. We may view it as a descriptive work; as a popular summary of the results of learned research in those regions of the earth to which the eye of civilised and religious man has always turned with strange wonder and deep reverence; and as a frank utterance of the writer's own thoughts and feelings in the course of her travels-of her reflections on what she saw, and her inferences from what she was taught. The judgments on the several parts of her work have been, as might be expected, very different. With regard to her descriptions-we believe there is an unanimous concession of their great excellence. They are vivid, realising and true. We speak of truth in the artistic sense-not as comprehending a minute representation of particulars, but as expressing the general effect of the actual scene on the observing mind. Her fidelity here may be tested by comparison with the admirable sketches of Roberts. But the impression of the pen is stronger than that of the pencil, as it opens more varied sources of association. Those who have read the "Eastern Life," will not soon lose the sense-as of some past reality—of those purple-tinted hills of the West bathed in the rich after-glow of sunset, and the moonlit piles of Philæ girdled by a solemn expanse of silvery waters or cease, as it were in memory's ear, to hear the grand music of the everlasting cataracts. On this subject nothing more need be said. Had her work chiefly interested us in this respect, we should not have thought of adding our feeble voice to the general chorus of approval. For her display of archæological lore, Miss Martineau puts forth no claim to originality. She gives her authorities in the margin, and plainly tells the reader that she follows them, because she believes that they know better than |