intelligence," contained also a report of the confirmation of one of our own princes in the Protestant faith, that great enemy to Popery. It is, however, more than probable that the Pope and others may accuse us, as Pitt once accused the English in regard to taxation, of “an ignorant impatience of 'cursing.'" We ought perhaps to bear it, for we are in We should be directly implicated, and say nothing about it. as silent as the celebrated jackdaw of Rheims, which the Cardinal Lord Archbishop of that town cursed. The wretched bird had stolen some spoons; and the archbishop, not being able to discover the perpetrator (for then detectives were not), solemnly cursed that thief. "In holy anger and pious grief he solemnly cursed the rascally thief! He cursed him at board, he cursed him in bed, from the sole of his foot to the crown of his head; he cursed him in eating, he cursed him in drinking, he cursed him in coughing, in sneezing, and winking; he cursed him in sitting, in standing, in lying; he cursed him in walking, in riding. Never," adds the grave historian, was heard such a terrible curse; but what gave rise to no little surprise, nobody seemed one penny the 66 *"He cursed him in sleeping, that every night He should dream of the devil, and wake in a fright; The only person who will The proverb, so often The fact is the same with us. be the worse for it will be the Pope. quoted, about curses being like little chickens, and coming home to roost, is very true. We have grown out of any material belief in them. A bad action curses itself, and vice, as well as virtue, is its own reward. The theory of compensation is universal, and he who indulges in bad language does not add to his respectability. When Pio Nono, in his grandiloquent commencement, refers to the "eternal memory of this matter,” he may have done so to his own hurt. Yet there is this to be said of him his people, and many others even from this favoured land, have so often persuaded him of the efficacy of his blessings, that he needs must logically believe in the weight of his curses. He blesses the people, and he blesses the cattle; and we have no doubt but that his pleasure and his anger are equally efficacious. Moreover, the Pope claims the right of cursing from a very high source: it is one part of the power of the keys; although he has not lately opened the cupboard which contained the anathema. The last who did so was Pius VII., in regard to Napoleon I. The other impious Pius does so evidently with a view of trying the nerves of Napoleon III. There are those who declare that the first Emperor never thrived after it. It will be curious to note the effect of this latter clap of thunder. Will it not be as useless as in reality that theatrical clap is, which, in the midst of the drama of Leah, startles everybody, and apparently slays an innocent old Jew, instead of an apostate and a would-be murderer? We talk wildly of the lightning and the blasting bolts of Heaven, and every paltry, petty, huckstering fellow amongst us would use God's store-house of curses in blasting his opponent or his neighbour ! The quiet and very undisturbed way in which Europe received the little message, which, by the way, was sold at Turin and elsewhere for ten centimes, marks as much as anything can the change which has taken place in opinion. It may be that some think it for the worse, others for the better; but the change is there. Philip Augustus, King of France, wishing to divorce Ingelburg, and marry Agnes de Meranie, the Pope put his kingdom under an interdict, no more solemn than this one with Sardinia. The churches were shut for eight months; they neither said mass nor vespers; they did not christen, confirm, nor marry; and even the poor babies born during the period came in for their share they were considered illegitimate! Every man, whilst the land was under the curse, was divested of all his civil or military functions; he was forbidden to laugh, smile, change his clothes, eat with enjoyment, wash his face, comb his hair, say his prayers, bathe, change his shirt, converse with a friend, or in fact do anything which could make life worth the fee-simple of a farthing candle. As for ploughing, working, shooting, riding, tilting, hunting, fishing, or hawking, they and all other amusements were out of the question. What is worse, the people believed in the curse, and that gave it force. But another King of France burnt the Pope's bull, and kicked his legates out of the kingdom; and as for your stolid Englishman, he never, even slightly, believed in it. The King's officers, in the time of John, used to squeeze gold from the fat abbots and priors, as well as from the Jews; and bell, book, and candle could not drive them away, if good (gold) angels beckoned them on. It is hard to say how many times Luther was cursed; but his sturdy Saxon frame did not wither under it. Yet the form is terrible enough: it is very ancient. The Pope has many blessings, but he has only one curse; but that is a comprehensive one. It includes everything. The Latin is given in Tristram Shandy—a much deeper work than many suppose, and is known here as the curse of Ernulphus. The French paper Le Nord, upon the publication of the latest issue of Rome's thunder, contained a translation of the anathema, or rather, part of it, but yet it was nearly two columns of close print in length. The commencement is tremendous. The offender was cursed inside and out, and all over; in head and foot, back and front, and both sides of him; in or out of doors, in every function and in every action, asleep or awake, in resting or moving; from the scarf-skin of his head to the tip of his toe-nail and the end of his ears; in all his bones, joints, parts, and members, within and without: "may there be," emphatically, "no sound place in him!"* The curse of Kehama was nothing to this one. It is so terrible, so comprehensive, so blighting, that it is no * The wonderfully humane and acute touches of Laurence Sterne, a moralist by far too much abused and too little admired, may be U wonder that the priest-ridden countries of the Middle Ages withered under its potent spells. When the Pope cursed Luther and his adherents, the method of the denunciation was carried out with all that fine theatrical effect which had been displayed in the churches many hundred years before. Every Christian was called upon to shun the accursed crew. On Sundays and festivals the priests marched in great force to the altar, and, after the publishing of the edict, a heightened effect was given by the cross from the high altar being thrown flat on the ground, and the signal of redemption thus being taken away. The vessels and ornaments were stripped from the church; the singing-boys flung down the incense-pots; and twelve sturdy priests, chanting at the top of their voices, dashed down the twelve lighted torches and trampled out the lights. In the midst of the darkness the bells tolled sonorously, and then ceased; the preacher waved his hands in the pulpit, and with a clash clasped up the Book of Life and carried it away, leaving the people to grope their way out of the church in sadness, perturbation, and dismay. A man so cursed was like a leper; all fled from him; his very wife and children seen in the account of Dr. Slop's reading out this curse on Obadiah. The truth of Byron's line “A fellow-feeling makes us wondrous kind,” was never better illustrated. Poor Uncle Toby, who had been wounded, only whistled as he heard the first part of the document ; but when it comes to where his own wound lay, he cries out in pity. |