burnt to the last snuff in his paw?...plucked by hens in the shape of a sparrow ?*... fastened in the shape of a flea to the book which the same great wonder-worker was reading, and not allowed to skip farther than from one page to another, as the Saint turned over the leaves; for Dominic, instead of cracking him, was contented with making him serve as a marker through the volume?...beaten, trampled on, pulled by the nose, soused with holy water? exhibited by S. Opportuna to all her nuns like a wild beast in a cage? outraged, taunted, and put to shame in all imaginable ways? The part which is assigned to the Devil in books of hagiography is that of the clown in the pantomime; and Grimaldi would have represented

quendo lugebat. Sic in fide fortis Homo Dei volenti sibi illudere illudens, ferulá quam semper secum portabat, percussit eum fortiter, dicens, Recede, nequam! insonuitque percussio acsi percussisset utrem siccum plenum vento. Tunc in parietem proximum se projiciens nusquam comparuit, fætoremque post se relinquens, quis fuerit, patefecit. Verè meritò inter angelicas potestates coronandus est, qui tam potenter diabolicas confundit et reprimit pravitates. Acta SS. Aug. t. i. 588.

Sautel has chosen this subject for one of his epigrams, which concludes thus ::

Dum tulit ardentem Phlegetontius histrio ceram,

Tunc certè, aut nunquam, Lucifer ille fuit.

Annus Sacer. ii. 50.

* Acta SS. Aug. t. i. 588.

him more to the life than Fuseli or Sir Thomas Lawrence have done.

In what mood, Sir, were these tales invented? Was it with a sigh or a smile that your clergy, secular and regular, of all orders, and of all degrees in theology, repeated them, as things to be believed? The subject is not lightly to be dismissed, and as you have endeavoured to do it, with contempt, as if it were so palpably unjust to reproach the Romish Church upon this score, that the charge need only be mentioned to be dismissed with indignation. But the avowal of your own incredulity will not avail for the acquittal of that Church. I do not question your sincerity in the avowal; and in Great Britain you may make it safely at the worst it can but expose you to a repetition of the civilities which you have formerly received from Dr. Milner and the Catholic Gentleman's Magazine. But I am surprized at the recrimination which you have attempted. You ask "if a week passes without an advertisement of a child's caul in more than one of our newspapers?" Is the case in point, Sir? Are then the newspapers under the inspection and controul of members of the hierarchy? Is the

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* Page 70.

superstition concerning such cauls encouraged by our clergy? Is it to be found in the Liturgy of the Church of England? Do they introduce it in their sermons? Do they carry on a trade in cauls? For the fables with which your Church is reproached are used to promote the sale of beads, scapularies, agnus Dei's, hearts, and other such implements of superstition. They occur usque ad nauseam in the lives of your Saints, in your Church histories, in your monastic chronicles; they are inserted in your devotional treatises; they are circulated at this very day with the full knowledge, approbation, and sanction of your Church, in countries where the Bible is a forbidden book; and by the authority of that Church they are printed in your Breviaries, and read in your Church service.

You have more than once expressed your admiration for the Jesuits, as a body of men not more distinguished by the services which they rendered to the Papal Church, than by their eminent attainments in every branch of learning. With whatever else they may be reproached, even their enemies will not charge them with any want of knowledge, or of discernment, or of prudence. Did you ever, Sir, meet with a practical religious work published by

the Jesuit Alonso de Andrade in the middle of the seventeenth century, and frequently reprinted, entitled the " Itinerary to Heaven?"* or with his " Patronage of Our Lady," which in some editions is printed with it? They are filled with fables, some of them as absurd and grotesque as others are revolting for their grossness and monstrosity. I am sure, were you to peruse these treatises, you would unequivocally acknowledge that there are more lies than pages in them; and that when the author collected them from other fablers and compilers of fables, he could not possibly have believed them himself. Anile credulity is not the failing of a Jesuit, especially of one who was allowed to appear as an author, and chosen to bear a part in the business of his order and of the world. these works were licensed as containing "nothing contrary to the opinion of the Church, but being wholly in support of its doctrines, and therefore well worthy to be published for the general good.". Father Andrade held the high office of " Calificador to the Supreme

Yet

* Itinerario Historial, que debe guardar el Hombre para caminar al Cielo, &c.-Lisbon, 1687.

† Patrocinio de N. Señora. Como es Patrona Universal del Genero Humano la Beatissima Virgen Maria, Madre de Dios y Señora Nuestra.

T

Council of the Holy and General Inquisition," which in his days was in full activity; and any person who should have expressed a disbelief of the thousand and one tales in these edifying works, would have fallen under the cognizance of that tribunal, and his offence have been qualified before it as heresy.

No, Sir: the number and the perpetual succession of fables with which your books are filled, can only be explained by the fact that a system of imposture has been carried on by the Romish Church. Those miracles, which you hear of with a sigh, were invented with a smile,...or they were actually performed with a grave face, and that sort of contentment at heart which a slight-of-hand-man feels when his room has been well filled, and his exhibition has gone off to the satisfaction of the company. Your clergy have dealt in them. "They have plowed wickedness; they have reaped iniquity; they have eaten the fruit of lies."*

In what has thus been written for the purpose of substantiating a charge of imposture and wickedness upon the Romish Church, I have been compelled to repeat expressions which you have thought proper sometimes to

*Hosea, x. 13.