SPECTATOR'S LIBRARY.

HISTORY,

Byways of History. from the Twelfth to the Sixteenth Century. By Mrs. Percy

Sinnett. In two volumes. Longman and Co. TRAVELS,

Recollections of Malta, Sicily, and the Continent. By Penry Williams junior, Esq.

FICTION, Prater, Edinburgh. Twelve Years Ago ; a Tale. By the Author of "Letters to my Unknown Friends."

Longman and Co.

MRS. PERCY SINNBTT'S BYWAYS OF HISTORY.

THESE volumes bear a strong family resemblance to a book which ap- peared in the course of last year, entitled Historical Pictures of the Middle Ages. There is the same familiarity with German history, but rather in the way of curious reading than original research ; an equal ease and elegance of style, which somewhat fails of its full effect by the slight- ness not to say the flimsiness of the matter. Byways of History may exhibit more substance in the material, and certainly more directness in "sticking to the text," with less of mere reverie and fancy painting. Abstracting from the work the merit belonging to the matter, we should say that there is little difference between the two ; though, if both were written by the same person, the present publication must be pro- nounced a considerable improvement both in treatment and composition.

Byways of History is a more solid and interesting book than the " Historical Pictures" : but these qualities are chiefly owing to the choice of subjects. Except a couple of chapters on the Monks of the primitive and middle ages, which contain less than was already known to most readers, and the history of the Abbey of Altenberg, well told, but scarcely worth the telling, the topics are broad, interesting, and fresh. In "The Castles of Germany and their Inmates," Mrs. Sinnett conveys a very good idea of the sad and lawless condition of society during the middle ages, by describing the form and arrangement of the innumerable strongholds with which the country was studded; and paints the manners of the times in depicting the occupations and life of the noble and his family : the facts are positive information, but they exhibit conclusions beyond. "Fist Law" carries the barons into action, and, by two well-chosen examples of knight adventurers, presents the reader with a fair idea of the incessant little wars by which the country was distracted and the people oppressed, though they furnished an opportunity of advancement to the bold of heart and strong of hand. "Free Cities" exhibits the character of the burghers and townsmen of Germany, in their civic, civil, and mili- tary capacities; and another chapter gives a rather curt sketch of the Hanseatic League. There is a fuller notice of the formation and rise of the Teutonic Knights, and of their conquest of Prussia, together with a display of the splendour of the order during its meridian glory; a singular and not unimportant branch of history, which was worthy of more elabo- rate treatment than is given to it. The Peasant War of Germany receives the amplest consideration of all; one half of the work being devoted to it. Mrs. Sinnett, following some modern German authorities, takes a more favourable view of the motives and conduct of the serfs in their revolts against their lords than has usually been done ; showing that they were instigated to rise by the oppressions under which they laboured, and that at first their demands were of the fairest and most moderate kind. It was only after they had been repeatedly cheated by their rulers into destructive delays on the plea of negotiation, and then attacked at dis- advantage and cruelly punished, that they began to attack in return, and, were finally provoked into outrage. Mrs. Sinnett also holds that re- ligion had little to do with the revolt of the peasants, though it has often been charged upon Reformation principles. Her facts strengthen an opinion we have before advanced, that religion has little to do in so- called religious wars : perhaps the facts go to prove that religion had little to do with the Reformation. It was the grinding oppression of the people both by the church and the nobility that rendered them soured and discon- tented, and prone to listen to anything that promised change. No doubt, the comparison of the doctrines of the New Testament with the actual condition of clerical affairs was a powerful means of excitement : the humility, poverty, self-denial, and action inculcated and exemplified by Christ and the Apostles, contrasted strikingly with the pride, luxury, sloth, and tyranny of the priests of the day, not to mention the avarice and profligacy of many. Added force and authority were given to the popular feeling when Scripture could be enlisted on the side of the masses; and the Romania reason for forbidding the Bible to the laity was too obviously interested to escape the dullest peasant, when he heard the gospel theory and smarted under the priests' practices. Still, the popular movement seems to us to have been secular or moral rather than religious in its origin—physical more than intellectual.

The plan of Byways of History is well contrived to bring out the subjects. Discarding anything like continuous narrative or a complete view even of any single historical action, the writer is at liberty to take just as much or as little as suits her purposes or her mode of treatment. The largest theme, the Peasant War, consists of a series of independent chapters, having no more necessary relation to each other than arises from their being parts of one large event : the life of an individual or any particular incident can be taken out of the main action, to illustrate the character of the age or the historical question. By this means, each chapter, if not quite complete in itself, is able to stand alone, and forms a distinct piece. What is more important, the writer's strength is not strained by a greater burden than she can bear, or her grasp tasked by a larger subject than she can hold. The plan is equally convenient to the reader, whose attention is not called upon for too long a time.

The style, as we have said, is elegant and animated : the views are mostly sound; fully bringing out the misery of the dark ages, yet making a fair allowance for the people who lived in them, except perhaps the "order" of barons—for the writer is more lenient to individuals. The principal defect of the book—which, however, is more conspicuous in the less happily chosen subjects—is a species of slightness, not precisely superficial, but the very reverse of profound. This may arise from the feminine nature of the fair writer's mind, but we suspect a want of ori- ginal research has something to do with it. Mrs. Sinnett has probably done little more than fashion materials that were brought together by plodding and laborious workmen. In fact, the principal part of her authorities are either modern histories, or historical essays, or "contri- butions towards" particular topics.

One great advantage of Mrs. Sinnett's plan is, that it enables her to present upon a full scale remarkable subordinate events and persons, of which history can take little or no notice. By this means, fall justice is done to individuals and to actions upon which history only bestows a passing touch. Sometimes, too, the writer brings into full light atrocities that history suppresses, or takes a view of the serfs—the people— which history has only taken lately. Without defending or suppressing the deeds of the boors in the Peasant War, she shows the faithlessness with which they were treated by the aristocracy, the manner in which men of high reputation for intellect and love of liberty—Luther and Melancthon, for example—threw their weight into the scale against the people; the "noble" cruelties that stimulated the outrages of the peasants, and the horrible ferocity with which they were punished after their defeat. Here is an example of clerkly justification and bloody acting up to the text. " The Elector Palatine had. it seems, felt some misgivings concerning the treat- ment the peasants had received and the measures taken to suppress the insur- rection, and wrote on the subject to Melancthon. The answer ran, that ' such a riotous and unruly people as the Germans ought to have even less freedom than they had; that what is done by their rulers is good, inasmuch as they do it; that if they take possession of common lands and forests, no one has any right to oppose them; if they see fit to take the tithes, the Germans must submit as the Jews had to do when the Romans seized on the treasures of their temple. The Germans are a froward bloody-minded race, who ought to be treated with more severity. God has named the temporal government a sword; and a sword ought to cut, &c. The Elector Palatine found himself ' comforted marvellous much' by these arguments, and drew the sword accordingly.

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The course of the combined armies was marked by burnings, beheadings, hangings, and slaughter in all forms. In one place we hear there was a scarcity of rope, from the great consumption made of it for these purposes: the executions of the peasants went on in the presence of wives and children. Oh, murder!' screamed a child on one occasion; they have cut off' my father's head.' On an- other, a peasant-boy pressing curiously through the ranks of the soldiers to look on, was caught by one of the hangman's assistants, pushed into the throng, and beheaded with the rest. Sometimes the princes and nobles made themselves merry over the business. In a place where a village had been destroyed, some six or seven fugitives were pursued to their hiding-place among the bushes that grew on the side of the castle-moat; and some knights who had followed them called out, that he among them should be pardoned who would stab the rest. A miserable wretch tried to save himself on this condition; and actually killed seve- ral of his brethren, and at last rolled into the water locked in deadly embrace with another. The skeletons were afterwards found still linked together at the bottom when the water was some time after drained off. George Truchsess moved about everywhere with a miscreant whom he called his dear Berthold; who took'delight in the hideous office of the executioner, and exercised it as an

amateur. • • • •

" The battle was over by two o'clock in the afternoon; but the whole remainder of the day till a late hour was occupied by the troops of Truchsess in shooting and cattin,,e down without mercy all whom they found or could overtake. Many were shot from the trees into which they had climbed to conceal themselves; and fell, it was said, like storks out of their nests.' Truchsess posted himself at the entrance of the wood, and stabbed many as they sought a shelter within it. He encamped on the field; but having afterwards learnt that some fugitives, and among them one who had taken part in the slaughter of the nobles of Weinsperg, had found a refuge in the town of Sindelfingen, he rode up to the gate with a few of his troopers; and having summoned the burghers, called oat—' You have within your walls a villain who was at the murder of my cousins at Weinsperg. If you do not give him up within half an hour, I will burn your town, with your wives and children. The man was found concealed in a dovecot, and brought to Truchsess, who recognized in him the piper, Melchior Nunnenmacher, and wreaked upon him a vengeance which one would think should leave little to be said of the ferocity of the peasants. He ordered him to be fastened with an iron chain to an apple-tree, in such a manner that he could run round it to a distance of about two feet. He then commanded wood to be brought; and round the tree, about a fathom and a half from it, he had a great circular pile built up: he himself, the noble George Truchsess Von Waldburg, the Count Ulrich Von Helfenstein. Count Frederick Von Furstenberg, the Baron Von Hutten, and other of his chivalry, working at it with their own hands. The pile was then kindled: it was night; the bright stars looked down upon the wide battle-field strewed over with the dead—with broken waggons and tents, guns and weapons of every kind, amongst which also lay many of the peasants wounded and mangled, but still living, whose groans and convulsive sobs were heard at intervals, amidst the roar of drunken revelry from the camp of the victors, and the shouts of laughter from the nobles, exulting like daimons over the sufferings of their victim, as he sprung shrieking from one point to another of the fiery circle within which he was slowly roasting to death, (feidangsam gebraten,) says the narrative of one who looked On. The other prisoners stood by, images of horror, white and cold as stone."