Page:Blackwood's Magazine volume 026.djvu/82

 I'Qctical and Devotional Superstitions of Italy.

senger is then applied to for a dona- tion in the following verse, which is sung by the little beggars :

" Belli, Belli Giovanotti, Che mangiate pasticiotti E bevete del buon vino, Un quattrin sull' altarino."

On the calends of May, the founda- tion festival of the altars of the Lares prsestites was celebrated in all the houses of ancient Rome. The Lara- rium, bearing the small household gods, was decked on this occasion with fresh garlands of flowers and foliage, and modern antiquarians believe that the custom of the Roman children is a relic of the ancient festival.

It would be easy to multiply ex- amples of similar coincidences ; I shall conclude, however, with one of many instances of Neapolitan superstition.

The Neapolitan sailors never go to sea without a box of small images or pup- pets, some of which are patron saints, inherited from their progenitors, while others are more modern, but of tried efficacy in the hour of peril. When a storm overtakes the vessel, the sailors leave her to her fate, and bring upon deck the box of saints, one of which is held up, and loudly prayed to for assistance. The storm, however, in- creases, and the obstinate or powerless saint is vehemently abused, and thrown upon the deck. Others are held up, prayed to, abused, and thrown down in succession, until the heavens be- come more propitious. The storm abates, all danger disappears, the saint last prayed to acquires the reputation of miraculous efficacy, and, after their return to Naples, is honoured with prayers.

ALL FOR LOVE; AND THE PILGRIM TO COMPOSTELLA. BY ROBERT SOUTHEY, ESQ. LL D. POET LAUREATE, &C.*

MR SOUTHEY here presents us with a brace of metrical legends, drawn from that inexhaustible and hitherto unrifled store-house, the Roman Ca- tholic, or as it may less offensively, and perhaps more justly be called, the Pseudo- Christian Mythology. No English Protestant, perhaps no living Romanist, is so well acquainted with the religious fables which, from the first century to the intellectual age of Joanna Southcote and Prince Hohen- loe, have encrusted the Christian church, as the prolific author of this little volume.

Few men, with understanding and morals so thoroughly Protestant, have imagination and feelings to compre- hend so fully the beautiful in Ro- manism, while his keen sense of the ludicrous, only subdued by a deeper sense of religious awe, makes him as quickly alive to its absurdities. Thus qualified, he might, in the wealthy autumn of his powers, fulfil the pur- pose of his forward spring, by enrich- ing the English language with a Poem founded on the imaginative and hu- man parts of the Catholic creed adorned with all its ceremonial pomp -its sensuous pathos its strange self- denials its soul- en thralling self-in- dulgences and exalted by the multi-

tudinous agencies of saints and angels departed spirits and demons. Tba- laba and Kehama have shewn what he could effect with the gorgeous su- perstitions of Arabia and Hindostan ; but these have no substance in Eng- lish imaginations, no significance for English hearts. Mr Southey has done for them all that could be done. He has presented them to the inward eye, distinctly, yet with all the splendid effects of multitude. Bodied forth by his romantic fancy, they very much resemble such a dream as might visit the late slumbers of a child after the first sight of a Christmas pantomime, or Easter melo-drama. He has done more he has breathed a soul into shadows, gay and restless as gold and purple sunbeams on the western ocean. But the soul is not their own it is not Arabesque, nor Hindoo, nor Ori- ental, but Christian English. No power of genius can reconcile, though it may disguise, the incongruity of a sensual religion with an almost ascetic morality. Even the human manners and actions which enter into the tex- ture of the story are at variance with the sentiments and characters. Nei- ther Oneiza nor Kailyal could have existed in a land of Harams. We do not allude to these discrepancies as

London, Murray, 1829.