the substance and forms of justice, were shown, even in the proceedings in parliament, and in the highest courts of justice, against the most exalted and most distinguished personages, whom the king wished to oppress, and whom all, except the king, wished to preserve. How much less, then, must necessarily have been the attention paid, either to truth or justice, when monks and nuns were to be persecuted? where obscure individuals were appointed to report upon their conduct? where the king was determinately bent upon their ruin? where his courtiers were indifferent to their fate? and where plunder of them was the general aim and immediate expectation of many, and the sanguine hope of almost all?

XII. 6.

Alleged Negligence of the Church of Rome, in remedying Ecclesiastical Abuses..

You remark, that "much might have been done

by the timely removal of abuses, so gross, that "the romanists of the present age are reduced, in "the face of notorious facts, to deny what they find "it impossible to defend."

Do we really deserve this abusive language? In the passage which I translated, in a former page, from Bossuet, are the abuses in the church denied? Are they even palliated? Is not this passage alone, particularly if we take into account the documents which it cites, and, therefore, incorporates, a complete refutation of the most con

tumelious charge, which you, in this place, bring against us? In the fifth of his excellent letters to doctor Sturges, doctor Milner expressly acknowledges "the increasing spirit of irreligion and immorality among different nations, and in none "more than our own, during a considerable time "previous to the reformation." Are not these as full confessions of the abuses in the church, as you can require? We believe that they were not so extensive, or so enormous, as you represent them. We think your description of them a hideous caricature; but their existence, to a great and lamentable height and extent, we never deny. If you look into Mr. Alban Butler's "Lives of the Saints," one of the most popular works which have issued from the roman-catholic press, you will scarcely find in it the life of any saint, who flourished during the middle ages, in which, on the one hand, the then existing disorders, and, on the other, his exertions to remove them, are not mentioned.

Thus, contrary to your strong accusation, do our writers acknowledge the existence of abuses in our own church. But why are you silent on the unceasing efforts of the roman-catholic church to remedy them? In 789, the council of Aix-la-Chapelle, in 813, the council of Châlons, proscribed the abuses in pilgrimages. In 1215, the council of Lateran, in 1274, the council of Lyons, came to resolutions against the multiplication of religious orders. In the last of these councils, and in that of Constance, much was said against the prodigality, with which indulgences were then distributed. Are you ignorant of the

resolutions taken at the councils of Constance and Basil, against the abuses of papal power? Eneas Silvius, afterwards pope Pius II, informs us, that "the doctrine held in those councils was that of the greater number of catholic divines, of the lights "of the church, of the doctors of truth, and of "most of the universities and schools in Christen"dom*"

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Hincmar, archbishop of Rheims, and cardinal Cusa, publicly called into question the authenticity of the decretals. Look into the histories of the pontificates of Leo IV, Leo XI, Gregory VII, Innocent III, Urban V, you will find abundant proof of the exertions of the popes, to preserve both integrity of faith and purity of morals in every part of Christendom, and to propagate christianity in the remotest regions of the earth. Open Wilkins; see what was done by the English roman-catholic clergy, during the middle ages, to promote the honour of God and the welfare of man." Gregory VII, Alexander III, Innocent IV," says Muller, a protestant writer of celebrity, "arrested "the torrent of immorality which was then swallowἐσ ing up the world..... If the hierarchy had been " removed, Europe would have been deprived of aǹ "order of men, which, (although it be for their own "interest only,) has always had its eyes upon the

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public welfare. An asylum against the wrath of

kings was found in the altar; an asylum against "the abuse of ecclesiastical power was found in the "throne, and the public good resulted from the Comment. Pii II. p. m. 15.

"balance." Why then have you dwelt so little on the edifying parts of the history of the romancatholic church, and so much on its misfortunes? What should you think of a painter, who, professing to give a view of the Alps, should keep its magnificent scenery wholly in the background, and bring nothing prominently in sight, but the few stagnant marshes in its vicinage?

XII. 7.

Doctor Southey's Abuse of former and present Catholic Historical Writers.

You say little on the subject of the divorce; but, when you mention the execution of Anne Boleyn, you tell us, that "the romanists were, in that age, "so accustomed to falsehood, that they could not "abstain from it, even when truth might have "served their cause. With characteristic effrontery,

they asserted, that her mother and her sister had "both been mistresses of the king, and that she was his own daughter.

"In this spirit the histories of our reformation. "were composed, till they perceived that such "coarse calumnies could no longer be palmed.

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upon the world, and then they past into an in"sidious strain, little less malicious, and not more "faithful."

Henry's connexion with the mother of Anne Boleyn is rejected by doctor Lingard; but the connexion between Henry and Mary, the sister of the unfortunate Anne, admits of no doubt. The mo

pro

narch's connexion with the mother of Anne is blematical the argument for it rests principally on the strong assertion of Saunders, and the inferences to be drawn from the marked care and attention which the monarch constantly bestowed on Anne, from the time of her birth; and from the expensive education, and the splendid establishment which she received from him, and for which no other reason can be assigned. Burnet replied to Saunders; le Grand to Burnet; and le Grand's arguments are powerful. But crimes should never be believed without strong, and seldom without positive evidence. This, in the present case, appears to be wholly wanting; and cardinal Pole's total silence upon the charge, in his acrimonious invectives against Henry, is favourable to the monarch. I do not believe the tale: but I cannot think that the historians, who asserted it, deserve the words "fiendish malignity," which you bestow upon them. If they deserve it, what epithet do those deserve who, in the days of James II, invented or propagated the story of the warming-pan?

I know of no catholic writer who merits the strong expressions which, in the passage I have cited from your work, you have applied, without any exception, to all our former and all our present historians of the reformation. You know the great and deserved celebrity of " Doctor Milner's Letters to "Doctor Sturges;" the greatest part of them is of an historical nature; and there never has been a more powerful attack on the characters of the persons, by whom the reformation as primitival