the Jews, I have given a faithful summary of that conduct. Lastly, I have compared your statement of the Romish devotion to the Virgin, with what is taught in your books of popular instruction, and with the practice of your people: I have entered upon the history and mystery of the Rosary, touched upon the rise and progress of the Hyperdulia, and in so doing have produced proofs of idolatry, superstition and imposture against the Papal Church. Bear in mind, Sir, that you called for such proofs; and that I am not the appellant in this controversy! I had let pass your Historical Memoirs, with all their offences on their head, when it lay in the course of my pursuits to have taken critical cognizance of them. As much from disposition as from principle, I dislike that sort of criticism which tends either to wound the feelings of an author, or to depreciate him in the opinion of the public: severity of this kind ought, in my judgement, never to be exercised, unless some public interest is concerned. Those Memoirs, Sir, were in that predicament. They bore upon a political question, which I believe to be the most insidious, the most mischievous, the most perilous, that has ever been brought forward since the Long Par liament; and if I had followed you through all your statements, for the purpose of showing what you had suppressed, and in how fallacious a light the facts were every where exhibited, I might in no small degree have counteracted the impression which those volumes were intended to produce. But that I was upon terms of courtesy and good-will with the author, was cause sufficient for withholding me. I have always admired that passage in the Iliad where Diomede and Glaucus meet in battle, and turn aside by mutual consent: Πολλοὶ μὲν γαρ ἐμοὶ Τρῶες, κλειτοί τ ̓ ἐπίκεροι I could wish that there had been a similar feeling on your part; and that the thanks of your Association had been voted as an undivided honour to Dr. Milner; in that case, bark as he might, I should not have stooped for a stone to fling at him. "Hostes habeo plures quam vellem, fateor; sed contra non paucos habeo amicos, dignitate, authoritate, doctrinâ, morum integritate, præcellentes. Nec hactenus mihi quisquam exhibuit negotium, nisi aut cerebrosus, aut invidus, aut arroganter indoctus, aut ex calumniâ venans gloriam." Even your personal call, Sir, would have been left unanswered by me, if there had not been something in the times which rendered reasonable the wish and the expectation on the part of my friends, and of those who feel and think with me, that I should reply to it. To that consideration I deferred; and then, instead of confining myself to a mere answer, I resolved, at some cost of time, upon taking a wider range,. whereby two purposes might be effected: the one was that of tempering the spirit of controversy; the other that of exposing more fully the character, the practices, and the effects of the Papal system; and proving upon the Papal Church by its own history, and the testimony of its own writers and agents, those charges of imposture and wickedness, which from the indignation expressed by yourself, Sir, and by the British Roman Catholic Association, an ignorant person might suppose to have been first advanced in the Book of the Church. Those proofs are the Vindication of the Church of England, and of that Book, which I trustwill continue to fulfil the object for which it was composed, long after you and I shall have put off with mortality our errors of judgement, and infirmities of mind; and, through the merits of our common Saviour, shall have entered into our promised rest. The English Creed does not exclude from that promise all who are of a different persuasion; such an exclusion is asserted in the Romish one; and this difference is one of the arguments which your Clergy hold out to those among whom their proselytes are made. With the weak and ignorant it has its weight: but to the better spirits who have been trained up in such a principle of proclaimed intolerance, the temper of mind which it induces ought to be worth a thought, as the political consequences to which it necessarily leads are on our part "worth a fear." I remain, Sir, Your obedient Servant, January 17th, 1826. THE END. ROBERT SOUTHEY. |