most of these executions to the imagination of the reader; for the ferocity of these Oriental persecutors contrived to unite obscenity of the most unspeakable nature with deliberate fiendish malice.

In the years 1622, 1623, about one hundred and thirty persons were executed. Some of these were burnt by slow fires; some were decapitated; some, the cords which bound them being burned, rushed out of the flames, and offered to make recantation, but were beaten back and consumed. As the magistrates were very sparing of wood, which is somewhat scarce in that country, the bodies of the martyrs were rather roasted than burned; which circumstance was turned to a singular account, for, as the executioners and the crowd retired from the field at night-fall, the Christians immediately repaired thither in the darkness, and brought away all the flesh that could be taken from the bodies of the priests, to be preserved as relics! This proceeding excessively irritated the magistrates; but they fully resolved that on the next occasion their vigilance should leave nothing that could possibly be converted by the Chistians into incentives of superstition. The bodies of the priests next executed were, therefore, reduced to ashes, and thrown into the sea, as were also the heads of such as were decapitated, together with the disinterred bodies of Christians long dead and inhumed. These heads, however, if not the ashes, though cast into the deep above five leagues from the coast, are said to have been miraculously driven back to the beach by the winds, and preserved as relics.

A remarkable feature in these executions was, that children, from six to twelve years old, were put to death with their parents; and one of these, not more than seven years of age, walked to the stake with the greatest intrepidity, singing Christian hymns as he went. It should be remarked, however, that these children were not constrained to suffer martyrdom, and always had their lives offered to them by the magistrates. Some accepted the offer; but on such occasions the fury of their parents was so great that, snatching up their trembling children, they rushed with them to the place of execution, and inscribed their names in the martyrology with their own hands! In other words, they murdered them.

We have already observed, that the manner in which these martyrs suffered cannot be minutely described: some were burnedsome drowned in the sea-others were hurled down lofty precipices into the foam of cataracts-others scalded to death in burning springs-women were violated by furious animals, or profligates still more odious, and, after being compelled to crawl on their hands and feet through the town naked, were thrown in that condition into large tubs, filled with vipers and serpents, that crept into their bodies and stung them to death! Other execrable practices they invented, which humanity shudders to think of, and which modesty refuses to relate. Some were carried to boiling springs, enclosed within high mounds of turf, and exposed to showers

of this burning water, till they expired. Others were branded on the forehead with hot irons, and then turned naked into the woods to perish, all persons being forbidden on pain of death to harbour or succour them. Others were enclosed within circles of high stakes upon the sea-shore, where they were nearly drowned at floodtide, and left dry during the ebb. There the burning sun and gnawing hunger were their torturers, a small portion of food being occasionally administered, to prolong the sense of suffering as much as possible; by which means the poor wretches sometimes survived twelve or thirteen days. A more fearful kind of torment was sometimes inflicted on parents: for, their eyes having been covered, that darkness and uncertainty might give fancy room to wrack itself with indefinite horrors, their children were brought close to them, and put to the torture; and this frequently wrought so violently on the hearts of fathers and mothers that they dropped down dead.

In discovering their victims, the magistrates of Japan evinced as much perseverance and ingenuity as they afterwards did in punishing them. It was made capital to harbour a Christian, and as often as one of this sect was discovered in a house, not only was every soul who had lived under the same roof put to death, but also all those of the next four houses, two on each side of the tainted dwelling. This severity was intended to rouse the people to keep watch over each other. The ends of all suspected streets were closely barricadoed, and officers visited every house in the city, and every room and office in each house. Sometimes they discovered missionaries boarded in, in dark niches in the wall, where they had lived concealed for months; at others, in holes dug in the sides of drains or sewers, where they were nearly suffocated with stench. And one or two were found in the huts of lepers, on moors and unhealthy marshes, whither those poor wretches are driven from the cities of Japan.

The object of the persecutors was changed in the course of their proceedings: at first, they aimed at nothing short of total extermination; but this was before they knew the number of Christians, for when they found they had forty thousand victims to cut off, they were staggered, and began to think of producing recantation. Even this method was soon felt to be wofully tedious; for a man who believes that two and one do not make three, can hardly be rendered a better arithmetician by having boiling water sprinkled on his head, or his children mangled, or his forehead burned with hot irons, or his eyes pulled out. Simple recantation was then held to be insufficient, and, to save his life, the sufferer was required to inform on some fellow Christian. This method is said to have been most effectual of all; thousands recanted and informed, and went to offer up their adoration to the gods of their ancestors. Christianity and its symbols gradually disappeared; and, although for some years a few miserable victims were now and then discovered, the whole Japanese population at length repaired to the

22

On the Extinction of Christianity in Japan.

pagodas, and signed an attestation of their orthodoxy with their blood. Christianity was extinct; and Budha and the Kami remained triumphant throughout the whole empire of Japan.

With respect to the renegades from Christianity, Government kept a correct list of them and their dwellings, and they incessantly watched their movements; and it was confidently believed by the most intelligent of the Japanese that one day or another it would cut them all off at a moment's warning, and thus remove every trace of heresy from the empire. Perhaps our readers would be gratified by learning how much knowledge the people of Japan had acquired of Christianity when they consented to suffer so much for its sake. We dare say they suppose the Catholic priests had laboured to enlighten their minds, and at the same time to improve their morals, and enlarge their sympathies. Previous to the coming of the Europeans, these Japenese barbarians, it is imagined, could have had no books, no arts, no civilization. Together with their religious dogmas the Portuguese would therefore have introduced learning and refinement into those remote isles, and have proved to be at once the religious and political saviours of that vast country. These views of the matter, however, are quite erroneous; for it is very questionable whether the Catholic missionaries were so well informed as the people they attempted to convert; and as to the knowledge of Christianity they communicated to their catechumens, it amounted, says the Dutch narrator, merely to these few points-that there is but one God, and one religion; and that the professors of all other creeds are to be eternally damned. Hell they painted in horrors inexpressible: heaven with equal joys. This was all they taught; and these were the doctrines for which many thousands of Japanese suffered martyrdom.-Yet, the historian says, the people of that country possess large libraries and are addicted to reading; but as there are in every country great numbers who must always remain comparatively ignorant, the missionaries found converts, with whom they shared the honour of martyrdom.

Such is the relation left us of this tremendous affair by Reyer Gisbertsz, and Caron, the writer of Hagenaar's voyage; both whose accounts are to be found in the collection of voyages which led to the establishment of the Dutch East India Company;* which in fact is the most valuable and curious collection of voyages we have ever seen, and deserves, if any thing of the kind ever did, to be translated and published now. To be sure it is somewhat voluminous, and ought not to be abridged; but works a hundred times inferior are constantly published and sold with success in the present day.

* Recueil des Voyages qui ont servi à l'Etablissement et aux Progrès de la Campagnie des Indes Orientales, formée dans les Provinces Unies des Païs-bas; Amsterdam, 1706.

23

REFLECTIONS AT THE GRAVE OF A FRIEND.

"Tis night!-No longer fashion'd to beguile,
My alter'd features wear the lying smile,
The smile assumed on purpose to deceive
The friends whose kindness would my woes relieve.
While o'er my head portentous meteors play,
Now, dark Despondency, resume thy sway,
On this wild heart thy deadly stamp impress,
And lord it o'er my bosom's wilderness.
There nought remains to cheer the leafless gloom;
There Pleasure's tender flowers no longer bloom;
They died beneath Affliction's withering blast-
And Hope, who linger'd long, retires at last;
She loves the face of Sorrow to survey
Brightening before her joy-inspiring ray,
But shrinks, to see her torch's powerless glare
Gleam on the livid features of Despair.

And thou! above whose lowly grave I bend,
To mourn the Man, the Poet, and the Friend!
Still must my mind revert to happier days,

Ere Friendship's moon had shown her waning phase-
Ere cold Suspicion chill'd Affection's smile;
When friendly converse could our cares beguile;
When pleased I mark'd thy fancy's vigorous play,
By genius kindled, pour the classic lay,
Where learning, taste, and feeling's warmest glow
Were blent together in commingling flow-
Thou, too, art gone!-Regret in vain may pour
Her wailings o'er thy tomb-thou art no more!
Quench'd is thine ardent spirit, cold and low,
Within the narrow house thou slumberest now.
But rest is there-Aye! rest at last is thine;
Would that such undisturb'd repose were mine;
No hopeless passion's keenly-venom'd dart,
Scares thy lone slumbers with convulsive start;
No ghastly images thy fancy fill,
Thy sleep is visionless-thy heart is still.

Oh! there are visions which, if life they spare,
Evince how much his grief-sear'd heart can bear,
Who, drop by drop, has drain'd the cup
of woe,
And yet survives more bitter pangs to know.

24

Mattra.

Reflections at the Grave of a Friend.

Dark are the scenes that o'er my memory roll,
And deep the gloom that settles on my soul-
And, oh! that thought, which thrills each quiv'ring vein
And shoots like phrenzy through the burning brain:
Which sends the arrested blood with sudden start
In cold revulsion to the shuddering heart:
Which from the breast rends the reluctant groan,
And shakes the mind with horrors all its own,
Till reason reels upon her tottering throne.
Before the breeze that ushers in the day,
The clouds of morning slowly float away,
But not with day disperse the thoughts that roll
O'er my sunk spirits and depress my soul:
I mark the bright'ning of the castern sky
With sadden'd heart, pale cheek, and joyless eye.

Not always thus I rose with dawning light
To curse the cheerless day, the sleepless night;
In earlier days, this heart could bound as free
As the light bark upon a summer sea;

When Scotia's scenes I view'd with raptured eye,
Blithe as the lark that carol'd in the sky,-

Inhaled the breeze that swept her sparkling fountains,
Breathed the fresh fragrance of her heath-clad mountain
Or stretch'd at noon-tide in the beechen grove,
Sung Nature's charms, or tuned the lay of Love.
If aught of grief I knew, it pass'd away

Like the swift shadows of an April day,

Short-lived and light, it never knew a morrow;

Soon Hope's bright sun dispell'd the clouds of Sorrow.
Not then my Muse, with melancholy wail,

Swell'd the dull moaning of the midnight gale,
Her notes of joy she flung upon the breeze,

And charm'd the lonely hour with other strains than th
Bright was her glance of rapture then, but now
The gloom of sadness deepens o'er her brow.
In vain her touch would wake the joyous lyre,
To plaintive murmurs sink the notes of fire;
The deepest tones that thrill from chords of woe

Suit this dark breast, where hope hath ceased to glow,
Whence joy hath fled, where fancy's transient ray
But gilds the gloom that hastens my decay.