Page images
PDF
EPUB

PROPHECIES RESPECTING THE PAPAL POWER.

imperial coronation of Charlemagne, the government of Rome and Italy was exercised in the name of the successors of Constantine. The liberty of Rome, which had been oppress. ed by the arms and arts of Augustus, was rescued, after seven hundred and fifty years of servitude, from the persecution of Leo the Isaurian. By the Cæsars, the triumphs of the Consuls had been annihilated: in the decline and fall of the empire, the God Terminus, the sacred boundary, had insensibly seceded from the Ocean, the Rhine, the Danube, and the Euphrates; and Rome was reduced to her antient territory from Viterbo to Terracina, and from Narni to the mouth of the Tyber." “When the sovereignty of the Greek Emperors was extinguished, the ruins of Rome presented the sad image of depopulation and decay: her slavery was an habit, her hierty an accident; the effect of superstition, and the object of her own amazement and terror. The want of laws could only be supplied by the influence of religion, and their foreign and domestic counsels were moderated by the authority of the Bishop of Rome. His alms, his sermons, his correspondence with the kings and prciates of the west, his recent services, their gratitude, and oath, accustomed the Romans to consider him as the first magistrate or prince of the city. The Christian humility of the Popes was not offended by the name of Dommus, or Lord; and their face and inscription are still apparent on the most antiept coins. Their temporal dominion is now confirmed by the reverence of a thousand years; and their noblest title is the free choice of a people whom they had redeemed from slavery." In the year 754, Pepin King of France, increased the Papal dominious surprisingly, by the gist of provinces, principalities, and cities.

C

liberality, and revive the name of the great Constantine. According to the legend, the first of the Christian Emperors was healed of. the leprosy, and purified in the waters of baptism by St. Silvester, the Roman Bishop. His royal proselyte withdrew from the seat and patrimony of St. Peter; declared bis resolution of founding a new capital in the east; and resigned to the Popes the free and perpetual sovereignty of Rome, Italy, and the provinces of the west. This fiction was pro-› ductive of the most beneficial effects. The Greek princes were convicted of the guilt of usurpation; and the revolt of Gregory was the claim of his lawful inheritance. The sovereignty of Rome no longer depended ou the choice of a fickle people; and the successors. of St. Peter and Constantine were invested with the purple and prerogatives of the Cæsars."

Thus did the mystery of iniquity begin to work, with all deceivableness of unrighteousness. Thus but was the sovereign Poutiff mighty in power, not by his own power; and thus did he practise and prosper, and through his policy he caused craft to prosper in his hand. Thus Rome acquired a new seat and dominion in this patrimony of St. Peter, which has continued for above a thousand years. The beast appeared to be wounded to death, but the deadly wound inflicted by the sword of Odoacer, King of the Heruli, was healed, after the Roman empire had received such an injury in one of its heads, or forms of government (that is the sixth) as left no probable prospect that Rome should ever more And all the world, rise to power and empire. wondered after the beast for this event of a new and extraordinary form of government, dirers from all others--" this sacerdotal monarchy,” as Gibbon calls it, excited the astonishment of mankind in the succeeding ages of its aggrandizement.

He made a new grant of the Exarchate, and "After the Pope's return from Avignou, the of Pentapolis, to the Roman Pontiff, and his successors in the apostolic See of St. Peter.keys of St. Peter were guarded by the sword of St. Paul. Rome was commanded by an impreg-· And thus was the Bishop of Rome raised to the rank of a temporal Prince." The splendid nable citadel: the use of cannon is a powerful donation was granted in supreme and obsolute engine against popular seditions: a regular force of cavalry and infautry was enlisted undominion, and the world beheld for the first time a Christian Bishop invested with the prerogatives of ader the bauners of the Pope; his ample retemporal prince; the choice of magistrates, the exercise of justice, the imposition of taxes, and the wealth of the palace of Raveuna. Before the end of the eighth century some apostolical scribe, perhaps the notorious Isidore, composed the Decretals, and the Donation of Constantiue, the two magic pillars of the spiritual and temporal monarchy of the Popes. This memorable donation was introduced to the world, by an epistle of Adrian the First, who exhorts Charlemagne to imitate the

venues supplied the resources of war; and, from the extent of his domain, he could bring down on a rebellious city an army of hostile neighbours and loyal subjects. Since the union of the Dutchies of Ferrara and Urbino, the Ecclesiastical State extends from the Mediterranean to the Adriatic, and from the confines of Naples to the banks of the Po; and as early as the sixteenth century, the greater part of that spacious and fruitful country acknowledged the lawful claims and temporal

sovereignty of the Roman Pontiffs. Their assumed the prerogative of being the supreme claims were readily deduced from the genuine sovereign of the Christian church, and exerer fabulous donations of the darker ages: thecised for many ages an uncontrolled and unisaccessive steps of their final settlement would || versal authority. The kings gave their, power and engage us too far in the transactions of Italy, strength unto him, as previous to the Reforma-, and even of Europe; the crimes of Alexandertion all the monarchs of the west acknowledged the Sixth, the martial operations of Julius the him as their superior and lord, and, as his vasSecond, and the liberal policy of Leo the Tenth, sals, submitted to his power and caprice. In a theme which has been adorned by the pens the seventh century, Pope Zechary I. deposed of the noblest historians of the times. In the Childeric, King of France, the last of the Mefirst period of their conquests, till the expe- rovingian race, and absolved his sujects from dition of Charles the Eighth, the Popes might their oaths of allegiance. In the eighth ceusuccessfully wrestle with the adjacent Princes tury, Paul I. excommunicated Constantines and states, whose military force was equal, or Copronymus, the Greek Emperor, because inferior, to their own." he endeavoured to abolish the worship of [To be continued.]

Power was indeed given unto him over all kin-images. dreds, and tongues, and nations-for the Pope

THE MAID OF THE INN.

OR,

THE GOLDEN FLEECE.

Golden Fleece was purchased, and the trade of the house carried ou.

Darmstadt is in the high road to Dresden; almost every traveller stopt at the inn, and was so well pleased with his entertainment, that he never failed to recommend the Golden Fleece to his friends.

IN the village of Darmstadt, in the Electerate of Saxony, was the well known inn of the Golden Fleece. This inn had long been kept by a veteran invalid, who had retired from the service of the Elector with a pension, and something in his purse, gained from the spoils of war. Andrew Risbourgh, the name of the innkeeper, had better luck than his comrades; for whilst of the regiment to which he belonged, not more than fifty men had survived, and those fifty could not reckon up more than a score of legs and a dozen arms amongst them, Andrew had come safely out of the wars, with a trifling wound, from which || he felt no other effect than a periodical twitch | mistress and bar-maid; with the help of anoin the wet months of autumn.

The military were constantly marching upon this road, and Andrew's house was the favourite post of refreshment and convivia||lity.

Mary, at the age of eighteen, was extremely pretty, very neat in her person, active, good humoured, and obliging. She was at once.

ther servant she did all the business of the Andrew was about fifty years of age when house, and Andrew was called upon for little be bought the stock and trade of the Golden exertion, but to carry in the first dish of a Fierce. He had obtained his garrison dis-dinner, and recommend the wine by drinking charge a few months before, and had just completed the thirtieth year of his military servitude, which entitled him to a pension from the government, and exempted him from all contribution to taxes and state imposts.

The family of Risbourgh consisted of a daughter, an only child. Mary, which was her name, had been brought up in the family of a Saxon nobleman, and officiated about the person of an elderly woman of rank, who left her upon her death a few valuable remembrances, consisting of jewels and some plate. Mary joined her little fortune to her father's pension, and by this filial contribution the

the first glass.

Mary in this situation had many suitors: she was known, moreover, to have some small fortune, besides being mistress of the Golden Fleece, and heiress of Andrew. For twenty miles round the neighbourhood of Darmstadt, Mary was the toast of the young and old; and the "Maid of the Inu" was a name almost as constantly repeated over the wine as the names of the Elector and the Archduke Charles of Austria. Mary, though solicited by a train of suitors, many of whom spent almost all their money in the inn for the sole purpose of winning her affections, had hitherte resisted

them all; not that her heart was insensible and cold, but because it was the property of another-of Frederick Zittaw, a young farmer, in the forest of Darmstadt.

gant. Banishment from her native province, the desertion of a father whom she dearly loved, poverty and distress, were all evils too light to weigh in the same scale with affection for her lover.

After an interview one fine summer's evening in a paddock behind the Golden Fleece, Mary returned to her home silent, pensive, and disturbed. The house was full of guests, but Mary had lost her usual vivacity and officiousness; the bells rung, the waiter was called, the guests wondered, Andrew was astonished, but nothing could dispel the care and deep reflection which seemed seated on the countenance of Mary. Andrew inquired the cause; Mary gave no answer. When the house was cleared of the visitors at the customary hour of night (for in Saxony all houses of entertainment must be closed at a

Zittaw was not esteemed in the neighbourhood; he was a singular, and to all appearance, a mysterious man; his age did not exceed thirty-five, but he would not confess himself so old; he had an erect carriage, was tall and boney, of a very dark complexion,|| piercing look, and a fine set of teeth. He was slow and hesitating in his speech, and did not often elevate his eyes. Zittaw had been settled in the forest about five years; he had come nobody knew from whence: all that the people could tell was, that he had purchased the lease of his farm at an auction, and had brought his stock from Bohemia. His farm was known not to be a very profitable concern, which proceeded in part from his inattention (for he was much given to the sports of thewhere, instead of undressing, she began to field, and the pleasures of the table) and partly from the very high terms at which he rented it. His landlord was the well known Baron of Darmstadt, a man who racked his tenants unmercifully; restrained them from all pleasures and rural enjoyments; put into severe execution the laws for protecting game, and was in every respect such a tyrant and a hunter, that the first Nimrod was a merciful and moderate man when compared || to the Baron.

Zittaw had the misfortune to offend the Baron, by falling under the suspicion of killing a hare upon his domain: the fact, indeed, was not proved against him, or he might have been imprisoned, perhaps hanged; but he had incurred a violent suspicion, and received notice to deliver up his farm on the next reut day. Mary, though aware of her lover's situation, did not on that account hesitate to accept an offer of marriage, which he made her, aud an invitation to accompany him to settle in his native country, Bohemia. There was one impediment only; it was Andrew Risbourgh. If there was one man whom Andrew hated more than another, it was Zittaw; and if there was one man whom Zittaw hated more than another it was Andrew Risbourgh. || The honest man well knew of the attachment subsisting between Mary and Frederick, and had often, warmly and passionately, cautioned her against him.

fixed time) Mary retired to her chamber,

adorn herself with more than usual gaiety. She took out of a box, which she had preserved with great care, all the valuable trinkets and jewels which the lady of rank, to whom we have alluded, had left her upon her death. These jewels were very valuable: she put on her necklace, her ear rings, and her bracelets, and disposed of various pins, brooches, and smaller trinkets, within the thick ringlets and curls of her hair; and then dressing herself ia virgin white, she sallied out of the Golden Fleece, hefore day-light, and long ere auy person in the village was stirring. She bid adieu to her home with a melancholy serenity; shed tears as she looked back upon the village, buried in sleep and tranquillity; but resolved to shew her lover the strength of her affection, by the fortitude with which she resigned every thing for his sake.

Zittaw met her at the appointed spot. The reason of this elopement is easily conjectured. Zittaw's rent-day had arrived, which was the day likewise of his quitting his farm. He had made no provision, nor did he ever intend to pay his rent: he had secretly disposed of his stock, had sold every thing valuable, and left a naked possession for his landlord. Having determined to stay no longer in the neighbourhood of Darmstadt, he had invited Mary to accompany him to his native province in Bohemia, where he had engaged to marry her;' and with the assistance of what be biaself had Mary loved her father tenderly, but her saved from the wreck of his farm, and the sale duty was languid when engaged against her of Mary's valuable jewels (which she had often affections; she donted on Zitlaw to distrac- shewn to him, and of which he knew the tion; confided every thing to him; believed worth) it was his proposal to purchase a good him to be as innocent as herself; and resolved house of trade, and commence innkeeper, to comply with his wishes, however extrava. || Mary asscuted to the plap; had engaged to

accompany him; and the present morning was fixed upou for their fight from Darmstadt.

They were now upon the borders of the forest of Darmstadt, a forest of great extent, the feudal rights of which, the free warren, and all the paramount claims, belonged to the Baren of Darmstadt The sun had now risen; and the lovers walked forward with a brisk step. Mary told Zittaw how she had disposed of her valuable jewels about her per- ¦¦ sou. "I have stuck the smaller ones in my bair, and I fear," said she," they are so fixed in it, that I must cut it off to disengage them."

[blocks in formation]

in a thick handkerchief, he struck into another path of the forest, and ran forward with the utmost swiftness.

The blood had penetrated the handkerchief, and the road of the murderer could easily be tracked by the drops of human gore which had fallen to the ground. In his alarm, Zittaw was not aware of this circumstance: he continued his flight, and augmented his speed.

He had not left the spot in which he had committed the murder more than half an hour, when two men, whom he knew by their dress to be game-keepers in the forest, and servants of the Baron of Darmstadt, jumped from a hedge into the road along which he was flying. He caught a glance of them as be looked backward, and his person was too remarkable not to be recognized: these men had been lead by the sound of the fowlingpiece, which alarmed Zittaw, into a pursuit of those whom they suspected to be poachers. Great rewards were offered for apprehending such offenders, and the game-keepers of the Baron were unusually vigilant. They had no doubt but Zittaw (from his known character) was the man who had fired the gun; he had a handkerchief, moreover, in his hand! It contained the game he had shot! The track of blood upon the ground proceeded from the animal he had secreted! this confirmed their

Her lover walked so fast, that Mary could scarcely keep up with him, but she scorned to betray weariness. Zittaw was very silent, and plunged deep in thought during their journey through the forest; sometimes when she addressed him, he answered her in a tone of coldness which chilled the poor giri's heart. Mary was both hurt and surprised; | the tears started in her eyes; but she did not choose to complain of his coldness. Her fondness suggested a thousand excuses for him, and her innocence was a stranger to suspicion. Their road now lay through an intri. cate path in the thickest wood of the forest; || suspicion. They called on him to stop, but and when they had reached the most sequestered spot, Zittaw proposed that they should sit upon a bauk, and eat their breakfast from a basket of provisions which he carried along with him--Mary consented. Their meal was just finished, when this execrable villain turned aside, and drawing a long knife from his pocket, without saying a word, plunged it into her bosom. Mary gave him one look; it was the last; she sighed deeply, and breathed out her gentle soul without a groan or torture.

She was no sooner dead, than Zittaw began to strip her of her jewels. The necklace and the bracelets were easily disengaged, but the trinkets, which the poor girl had stuck in her hair, were (as she had said) tixed so fast in the thick locks and ringlets, that it was no easy task to extricate them.

Whilst coolly employed in his murderous rapine, Zittaw was alarmed at the report of a fowling-piece, the sound of which seemed to be near him. Delay was now to hazard both his spoil and his detection; without hesitation, therefore, he severed the head of Mary || from the lifeless trunk, by means of the knife with which he had stabbed her, and wrapping it up, with the precious contents of the hair,

||

||

Zittaw, aware of his danger, continued his flight, and increased his speed. At length, when the game-keepers found that he gained upon them, and that they were likely to be losers in the contest of swiftness, one of them (having warned Zittaw that he would shoot him, if he did not surrender himself) levelled his piece, and after a few moments discharged it at the fugitive. Zittaw continued running, but was soon obliged to stop; he had received the shot in his leg, and was compelled to surrender. The handkerchief, which he held fast, was soon wrested from his gripe; and what was their surprise, when they discovered, instead of the game they expected, that its contents were a human head !—It is needless to pursue the narrative of this well authenticated fact and wonderful detection. By the traces of the blood, the game keepers were conducted to the body of Mary. Ziltaw's guilt was too manifest to be disowned; be confessed his crime, and after a mere formal trial expiated it upon the wheel. He died, however, without penitence or remorse. Poor Andrew Risbourgh did not survive the fate of Mary many months, and the Golden Fleece sunk with him. It is now only remembered by the unfortunate tale attached to its former tenants.

[graphic][subsumed]

Engraven for N1,of the New Series, La Belle Assemblee, Pub, by J.Bell, Southampton Str, Strand, Feb 11810.

« PreviousContinue »