It may be naturally asked in this place-if the jesuits were such friends to humanity, rendered such services to religion and literature, and were individually so honoured and loved, as they are represented in these pages,-why had they so many and such violent enemies?

The answer is plain :

Talents and merit produce power and influence; --power and influence produce envy and ill-will. The power and influence of an individual operate generally within a limited circle, and therefore excite the envy and ill-will of few ;-and these expire with their objects.-The power and influence of a body, numerously and strongly constituted, and spread over the whole world, as was the society of Jesus, are not thus limited; they are not only permanent, but almost always on the increase*.

The consequence is obvious.

66

A young gentleman complained to the late sir Alexander Strachan, a distinguished member of the society, of the undeserved malevolence which he had received from some, whom he had served: My dear friend," said the worthy father, you "know the jesuits: think of us, and be satisfied." He might have involved the observation higher: he might have said,—“ Think of the fate of him, qui pertransiit benefaciendo."

66

The writer hopes these historical minutes of this very interesting society will displease no enlightened or candid reader. No one can be more

See the Apologie de l'Institût des Jésuites, ch. iii. septième objection,-from which this remark is taken.

independent of its members, less connected with them, or have fewer calls on him to advocate their cause.-But,

"Pleas'd to spread friendships, and to cover heats,'

"

POPE,

he could not refuse himself the satisfaction of offering, in this place, a few words in their eulogy.

CHAP. LXXVI.

GENERAL STATE OF THE ENGLISH CATHOLICS, IN THE REIGN OF GEORGE THE THIRD, BEFORE THE ACT PASSED IN THEIR FAVOUR IN

1778.

1760.

IN the preceding part of this work, we have brought the history of the English catholics to the reign of George the third: we shall now briefly mention, I. Their general condition, from the revolution till that period: II. And its gradual improvement.

LXXVI. 1.

General Condition of the English Catholics, from the Revolution till the Accession of George the third.

DURING the first part of his reign, the catholics suffered a considerable degree of persecution.

Attempts were sometimes made to carry into execution the sanguinary laws against their clergy. In 1769, the honourable James Talbot, the brother of the late, and uncle of the present earl of Shrewsbury, was tried for his life, at the Old Bailey, for saying mass; and only escaped conviction from the want of evidence. Other priests were prosecuted; and some imprisoned for life. On an inquiry made by the writer of these pages, in 1780, respecting the execution of the penal laws against the catholics, he found, that the single house of Dynely and Ashmall, attornies in Gray's Inn, had defended more than twenty priests, under such prosecutions; and that, greatly to their honour, they had generally defended them gratuitously. To avoid these prosecutions, several priests fled beyond the sea, or removed to remote parts of England. In many instances, the laws which deprived the catholics of their landed property, were enforced cases of this nature are mentioned in the law reports.

So lately as in the year 1782, two very poor catholic labourers and their wives were summoned before one of his majesty's justices of peace in the county of York, and fined one shilling each, for not repairing to church; and the constable raised it by distraining, in the house of one them, an oak table, and a plate shelf,-in the house of the other, a shelf and two dozen of delf plates, one pewter dish, with some pewter plates, one oak table, and an arm chair. The sale was publicly called, at the

market day, and the goods were sold by auction at their respective houses *.

In other respects, the catholics were subject to great vexation and contumely. No person, who was not alive in those times, can imagine the depression and humiliation under which the general body of roman-catholics then laboured. Often, in his early life, has the writer heard the ancestors of the catholic youth of that period tell them, that they could form no idea of the sufferings of the catholics in the beginning of the last century. He, in his turn, can now aver, that the present catholic youth can form no idea of the lamentable state of the catholics, so lately as in the reign of George the second, and the first years of George the third. They cannot picture to themselves the harsh, the contemptuous, and the distressing expressions, which, at that time, a catholic daily heard, even from persons of humanity and good breeding. At a court ball, a roman-catholic young lady of very high rank, distinguished by character, by beauty, and even by the misfortunes of her family, was treated with marked slight by the lord chamber

* The constable's bill was in these words:

To not attending church

£.

2

See "A Letter to the author of the Review of the Cases of "the Protestant Dissenters, with a short Address to the most "reverend the Lord Bishop of St. David's, by Sir Henry Englefield, bart.-1790, p. 61, 62."

"to be so

lain. "It is very hard," she exclaimed, "treated;-after all, I was invited : "-and burst into tears. They were noticed by queen Caroline; and, when her majesty learnt the cause, there was not a kind, a generous, or a soothing excuse, which she did not make to her. While this compassionate gentleness showed the amiable mind of the queen, the unfeeling rudeness of the chamberlain as strongly showed the temper of the times. A Norfolk gentleman took a young catholic friend to his seat in that county, and told him he should make it a point to introduce him to all his friends; "but," said he, "you must permit me to inform "them that you are a catholic, for I do not think it "fair to introduce a catholic to any one, without "first mentioning his religion."-Yet, this gentleman possessed a cultivated understanding, and had travelled. The writer doubts, whether, during the first years of the late reign, any catholic permitted his son to travel in a stage-coach, without previously cautioning him against saying any thing that might discover his religion.-Such was the general fear of abuse and contumely, in which the catholics then lived.

Two circumstances particularly contributed both to preserve and increase the national prejudice against the roman-catholics. From the time of the revolution, the state had been divided into a whig and a tory, the church, into a high and a low church, party; and each had its subdivisions. Agreeing in nothing else, all united in professing an abhorrence of popery; and each strove to outdo the