known but to the most curious readers, claims a place in these volumes; nor is the history of the work itself without interest. Eight large folios, each consisting of a thousand closely printed pages, stand like a vast mountain, of which, before we climb, we may be anxious to learn the security of the passage. The history of dictionaries is the most mutable of all histories; it is a picture of the inconstancy of the knowledge of man; the learning of one generation passes away with another; and a dictionary of this kind is always to be repaired, to be rescinded, and to be enlarged.

The small town of Trevoux gave its name to an excellent literary journal, long conducted by the Jesuits, and to this dictionary-as Edinburgh has to its critical Review and Annual Register, &c. It first came to be distinguished as a literary town from the Duc du Maine, as prince sovereign of Dombes, transferring to this little town of Trevoux not only his parliament and other public institutions, but also establishing a magnificent printing house, in the beginning of the last century. The duke, probably to keep his printers in constant employ, instituted the Journal de Trevoux; and this, perhaps, greatly tended to bring the printing house into notice; so that it became a favourite with many good writers, who appear to have had no other connexion with the place; and this dictionary borrowed its first title, which it always preserved, merely from the place where it was printed. Both the journal and the dictionary were, however, consigned to the cares of some learned Jesuits; and perhaps the place always indicated the principles of the writers, of whom none were more eminent for elegant literature than the Jesuits.

The first edition of this dictionary sprung from the spite of rivalry, occasioned by a French dictionary published in Holland, by the protestant Basnage de Beauval. The duke set his Jesuits hastily to work; who, after a pompous announcement that this dictionary was formed on a plan suggested by their patron, did little more than pillage Furetiere, and rummage Basnage, and produced three new folios without any novelties; they pleased the Duc du Maine and no one else. This was in 1704. Twenty years after it was republished and improved; and editions increasing, the volumes succeeded each other, till it reached to its present magnitude and value in eight large folios, in 1771, the only edition now esteemed. Many of the names of the contributors to this excellent collection of words and things, the industry of Monsieur Barbier has revealed in his Dictionnaire des Anonymes,' art. 10782. The work, in the progress of a century, evidently became a favourite receptacle with men of letters in France, who eagerly contributed the smallest or the largest articles with a zeal honourable to literature and most useful to the public. They made this dictionary their common-place book for all their curious acquisitions; every one compe tent to write a short article preserving an important fact, did not aspire to compile the dictionary, or even an entire article in it; but it was a treasury in which such mites collected together formed its wealth; and all the literati may be said to have been engaged in perfecting these volumes during a century. In this manner, from the humble beginnings of three volumes, in which the plagiary much more than the contributor was visible, eight were at length built up with more durable materials, and which claim the attention and the gratitude of the student.

The work, it appears interested the government itself, as a national concern, from the tenor of the following anecdotes.

Most of the minor contributors to this great collection were satisfied to remain anonymous; but as might be expected anong such a number, sometimes a contributor was anxious to be known to his circle; and did not like this penitential abstinence of fame. An anecdote recorded of one of this class will amuse: a Monsieur Lautour du Chatel, avocat au parlement de Normandie, voluntarily devoted his studious hours to improve this work, and furnished near three thousand articles to the supplement of the edition of 1752. This ardent scholar had had a lively quarrel thirty years before with the first authors of the dictionary. He had sent them one thousand three hundred articles, on condition that the donor should be handsomely thanked in the preface of the new edition, and further receive a copy en grand papier. They were accepted. The conductors of the new edition, in 1721, forgot all the promises-nor thanks, nor copy! Our learned avocat, who was a little irritable, as his nephew who wrote his life ac

knowledges, as soon as the great work appeared, astonished, like Dennis, that they were rattling his own thunder,' without saying a word, quits his country town, and ventures, half dead with sickness and indignation, on an expedition to Paris, to make his complaint to the chancel lor; and the work was deemed of that importance in the eye of government, and so zealous a contributor was considered to have such an honourable claim, that the chancellor ordered, first, that a copy on large paper, should be immediately delivered to Monsieur Lautour, richly bound and free of carriage; and secondly, as are paration of the unperformed promise, and an acknowledgment of grati tude, the omission of thanks should be inserted and explained in the three great literary journals of France; a curious instance among others of the French government often mediating, when difficulties occurred in great literary undertakings, and considering not lightly the claims and the honour of men of letters.

Another proof, indeed, of the same kind, concerning the present work, occurred after the edition of 1752. One Jamet l'ainé, who had with others been usefully employed on this edition, addressed a proposal to the government for an improved one, dated from the Bastile. He proposed that the government should choose a learned person, accustomed to the labour of the researches such a work requires; and he calculated, that if supplied with three amanuenses, such an editor would accomplish his task in about ten or twelve years; the produce of the edition would soon repay all the expenses and capital advanced. This literary projector did not wish to remain idle in the Bastile. Fifteen years afterwards the last improved edition appeared, published by the associated booksellers of Paris.

ties.

As for the work itself, it partakes of the character of our Encyclopædias; but in this respect it cannot be safely consulted, for widely has science enlarged its domains and corrected its errors since 1771. But it is precious as a vast collection of ancient and modern learning, particularly in that sort of knowledge which we usually term antiqua rian and philological. It is not merely a grammatical, scientific and technical dictionary, but it is replete with divinity, law, moral philosophy, critical and historical learting, and abounds with innumerable miscellaneous curiosi It would be difficult, whatever may be the subject of inquiry, to open it, without the gratification of some knowledge neither obvious nor trivial. I heard a man of great learning declare, that whenever he could not recollect his knowledge he opened Hoffman's Lexicon Univer sale Historicum, where he was sure to find what he had lost. The works are similar; and valuable as are the German's four folios, the eight of the Frenchman may safely be recommended as their substitute, or their supplement. As a Dictionary of the French Language it bears a peculiar feature, which has been presumptuously dropped in the Dictionnaire de l'Academie; the last invents phrases to explain words, which therefore have no other authority than the writer himself! this of Trevoux is furnished, not only with mere authorities, but also with quotations from the classical French writers-an improvement which was probably suggested by the English Dic tionary of Johnson. One nation improves by another.

QUADRIO'S ACCOUNT OF ENGLISH POETRY,

It is, perhaps, somewhat mortifying in our literary researches to discover that our own literature has been only known to the other nations of Europe comparatively with in recent times. We have at length triumphed over our continental rivals in the noble struggles of genius, and our authors now see their works printed even at foreign press es, while we are furnishing with our gratuitous labours nearly the whole literature of a new empire; yet so late as in the reign of Anne, our poets were only known by the Latin versifiers of the Musa Anglicana; and when Boileau was told of the public funeral of Dryden, he was pleased with the national honours bestowed on genius, but he declared that he never heard of his name before. This great legislator of Parnassus has never alluded to one of our own poets, so insular then was our literary glory! The most remarkable fact, or perhaps assertion, I have met with, of the little knowledge which the continent had of our writers, is a French translation of Bishop Hall's Characters of Virtues and Vires.' It is a duodecimo, printed at Paris of 109 pages, 1610, with this title. Carac teres de Vertus et de Vices; tirés de l'Anglois de M. Josef Hall. In a dedication to the Earl of Salisbury, the translator informs his lordship that ce livre est la premiere tra

duction de l'Anglois jamais imprimée aucun vulgaire. The first translation from the English ever printed in any modern language! Whether the translator is a bold liar, or an ignorant blunderer, remains to be ascertained; at all events it is a humiliating demonstration of the small progress which our home literature had made abroad in 1610! I come now to notice a contemporary writer, professedly writing the history of our Poetry, of which his knowledge will open to us as we proceed with our enlightened and amateur historian.

Father Quadrio's Della Storia e della ragione d'ogni Poesia, is a gigantic work, which could only have been projected and persevered in by some hypochondriac monk, who, to get rid of the ennui of life, could discover no pleasanter way than to bury himself alive in seven monstrous closely-printed quartos, and every day be compiling something on a subject which he did not understand. Fortunately for Father Quadrio, without taste to feel, and discernment to decide, nothing occurred in this progress of literary history and criticism to abridge his volumes and his amusements; and with diligence and erudition unparalleled, he has here built up a receptable for his immense, curious, and trifling knowlege on the poetry of every nation. Quadrio is among that class of authors whom we receive with more gratitude than pleasure, fly to sometimes to quote, but never linger to read; and fix on our shelves, but seldom have in our hands.

We

I have been much mortified, in looking over this voluminous compiler, to discover, although he wrote so late as about 1750, how little the history of English Poetry was known to foreigners. It is assuredly our own fault. have too long neglected the bibliography and the literary history of our own country. Italy, Spain and France, have enjoyed eminent bibliographers-we have none to rival them. Italy may justly glory in her Tiraboschi and her Mazzuchelli; Spain in the Bibliothecas of Nicholas Antonio; and France, so rich in bibliographical treasures, affords models to every literary nation of every species of literary history. With us, the partial labour of the hermit Anthony for the Oxford writers, compiled before philosophical criticism existed in the nation; and Warton's History of Poetry, which was left unfinished at its most critical periol, when that delightful antiquary of taste had just touched the threshold of his Paradise-these are the sole great labours to which foreigners might resort, but these will not be found of much use to them. The neglect of our own literary history has, therefore, occasioned the errors, sometimes very ridiculous ones, of foreign writers respecting our authors. Even the lively Chaudon, in his Dictionnaire Historique,' gives the most extraordinary accounts of most of the English writers. Without an English guide to attend such weary travellers, they have too often been deceived by the Mirages of our literature. They have given blundering accounts of works which do exist, and chronicled others which never did exist; and have often made up the personal history of our authors, by confounding two or three into one. Chandon, mentioning Dryden's tragedies, observes that Atterbury translated two into Latin verse, entitled Achitophel and Absalom !*

Of all these foreign authors none has more egregiously failed than this good Father Quadrio. In this universal history of poetry, I was curious to observe what sort of figure we made; and whether the fertile genius of our original poets had struck the foreign critic with admiration, or with critical censure. But little was our English poetry known to its universal historian. In the chapter on those who have cultivated la melica poesia in propria lingua tra Tedeschi, Fiamminghi e Inglesi't we find the following list of English poets.

Of John Cowper; whose rhymes and verses are preserved in minuscript in the college of the most holy Trinity, in Cambridge,

Arthur Kelton flourished in 1548, a skilful English poet; he composed various poems in English; also he lauds the Cambrains and their genealogy.

The works of W. Wycherlev in English prose and verse.' These were the only English poets whom Quadrio at first could muster together! In his subsequent additions he caught the name of Sir Philip Sidney with an adven* Even recently il Cavaliere Onofrio Boni, in his Eloge of Lanzi, in naming the three Augustan periods of modern literaturs, fixes them, for the Italians, under Leo the Tenth; for the French, under Lewis the Fourteenth, or the Great; and for the English, under Charles the Second!

Quadrio, Vol. II, p. 418.

turous criticism, le sue pocsie assai buone.' He ther was lucky enough to pick up the title-not the volume surely-which is one of the rarest; Fiori poetici de A. Cowley,' which he calls poesie amorose' this must mean that early volume of Cowley's, published in his thirteenth year, under the title of Poetical Blossoms.' Further he laid hold of John Donne' by the skirt, and Thomas Creech,' at whom he made a full pause; informning his Italians, that his poems are reputed by his nation as 'assai buone.' He has also 'Le opere di Guglielmo;' but to this christian name, as it would appear, he had not ventured to add the surname. At length in his progress of inquiry, in this fourth volume (for they were published a different periods) he suddenly discovers a host of English poets-in Waller, Duke of Buckingham, Lord Roscommon, and others, among whom is Dr Swift; but he acknowledges their works have not reached him, Shakespeare at length appears on the scene; but Quadrio's notions are derived from Voltaire, whom, perhaps, he boldly translates. Instead of improving our drama, he conducted it a totale rovina nelle sue farse monstruose, che si chiaman tragedie; alcune scene vi abbia luminose e belle e alcuni tratti si trovono terribili e grandi. Otway is said to have composed a tragic drama on the subject of Venezia Salvata;' he adds with surprise, 'ma affatto regolare.' Regularity is the essence of genius with such critics as Quadrio. Dryden is also mentioned; but the only drama specified is 'King Arthur.' Addison is the first Englishman who produced a classical tragedy; but though Quadrio writes much about the life of Addison, he never alludes to the Spectator. We come now to a more curious point. Whether Quadrio had read our comedies may be doubtful; but he distinguishes them by very high commendation. Our comedy, he says, represents human life, the manners of citizens and the people, much better than the French and Spanish comedies, in which all the business of life is mixed up with love affairs. The Spaniards had their gallantry from the Moors, and their manners from chivalry; to which they added their tumid African taste, differing from that of other nations. I shall translate what he now adds of English comedy.

The English more skilfully even than the French, have approximated to the true idea of comic subjects, choosing for the argument of their invention the customary and natural objects of the citizens and the populace. And when religion and decorum were more respected in their theatres, they were more advanced in this species of poetry, and merited not a little praise, above their neighbouring nations. But more than the English and the French, (to speak according to pure and bare truth,) have the Italians signalized themselves.' A sly, insinua ting criticism! But, as on the whole, for reasons which I cannot account for, Father Quadrio seems to have relished our English comedy, we must value his candour. He praises our comedy; per il bello ed il buono; but, as he is a methodical Aristotelian, he will not allow us that liberty in the theatre, which we are supposed to possess in parliament-by delivering whatever we conceive to the purpose. His criticism is a specimen of the irrefragable. We must not abandon legitimate rules to give mere pleasure thereby; because pleasure is produced by, and flows from, the beautiful; and the beautiful is chiefly drawn from the good order and unity in which it consists!

Quadrio succeeded in discovering the name of one of our greatest comic geniuses; for, alluding to our diversity of action in comedy, he mentions in his fifth volume, page 148,- Il celebre Benjanson nella sua commedia intitolato Bartolommeo Foicere, e in quella altra commedia intitolato Ipsum Veetz. The reader may decipher the poet's name and his Fair: but it required the critical sagacity of Mr Douce to discover that by Ipsum Vertz we are to understand Shadwell's comedy of Epsom Wells. The Italian critic had transcribed what he and his Italian printer could not spell; we have further discovered the source of his intelligence in St Evremond, who had classed Shadwell's To such shifts is the writer comedy with Ben Jonson's.

of an universal history d'ogni poesia, miserably reduced! Towards the close of the fifth volume we at last find the sacred muse of Milton,-but, unluckily, he was a man' di pochissima religione,' and spoke of Christ like an Arian. Quadrio quotes Ramsay for Milton's vomiting forth abuse on the Roman church. His figures are said to be often mean, unworthy of the majesty of his subject; but in a later place, excepting his religion, our poet, it is decided on, is worthy' di molti laudi.'

Thus much for the information the curious may obtain on English poetry, from its universal history. Quadrio unquestionably writes with more ignorance than prejudice against us: he has not only highly distinguished the comic genius of our writers, and raised it above that of our neighbours, but he has also advanced another discovery, which ranks us still higher for original invention, and which I am confident, will be as new as it is extraordinary to the English reader.

Quadrio, who, among other erudite accessories to his work, has exhausted the most copious researches on the origin of Punch and Harlequin, has also written, with equal curiosity and value, the history of Puppet-shows. But whom has he lauded? whom has he placed paramount, above all other people, for their genius of invention in improving this art ?-The English and the glory which has hitherto been universally conceded to the Italian nation themselves, appears to belong to us! For we, it appears, while others were dandling and pulling their little representatives of human nature into such awkward and unnatural motions, first invented pulleys, or wires, and gave a fine and natural action to the artificial life of these gesticulating machines.!

We seem to know little of ourselves as connected with the history of puppet-shows; but in an article in the curious Dictionary of Trevoux, I find that John Brioché, to whom had been attributed the invention of Marionettes, is only to be considered as an improver; in his time (but the learned writers supply no date,) an Englishman discovered the secret of moving them by springs, and without strings; but the Marionettes of Brioché were preferred for the pleasantries which he made them deliver. The erudite Quadrio appears to have more successfully substantiated our claims to the pulleys or wires, or springs of the puppets, than any of our own antiquaries; and perhaps the uncommemorated name of this Englishman was that Powell, whose Solomon and Sheba were celebrated in the days of Addison and Steele; the former of whom has composed a classical and sportive Latin poem on this very subject. But Quadrio might well rest satisfied, that the nation, which could boast of its Fantoccini, surpassed, and must ever surpass the puny efforts of all doli-loving people!

"POLITICAL RELIGIONISM.'

churches next to the Bible, while John Fox himself is es teemed little less than an evangelist.' Dodd's narratives are not less pathetic; for the situation of the catholic, who had to secrete himself, as well as to suffer, was more adapted for romantic adventures than even the melancholy but monotonous story of the protestants tortured in the cell, or bound to the stake. These catholics, however, were attempting all sorts of intrigues; and the saints and martyrs of Dodd to the parliament of England were only traitors and conspirators!

Heylin, in his history of the Puritans and the Presbyte rians, blackens them for political devils. He is the Spagnolet of history, delighting himself with horrors at which the painter himself must have started. He tells of their 'oppositions' to monarchical and episcopal government; their innovations' in the church; and their embroilments' of the kingdoms. The sword rages in their hands; trea son, sacrilege, plunder; while 'more of the blood of Englishinen had poured like water within the space of four years, than had been shed in the civil wars of York and Lancaster in four centuries!"

They wea

Neale opposes a more elaborate history; where these 'great and good men,' the puritans and the presbyterians, are placed among the reformers; while their fame is blanched into angelic purity. Neale and his party opined that the protestant had not sufficiently protested, and that the reformation itself needed to be reformed. ried the impatient Elizabeth, and her ardent churchmen; and disputed with the learned James, and his courtly bishops, about such ceremonial trifles, that the historian may blush or smile who has to record them. And when the puritan was thrown out of preferment, and seceded into separation, he turned into a presbyter. Noncon formity was their darling sin, and their sullen triumph.

Calamy, in four painful volumes, chronicles the bloodless martyrology of the two thousand silenced and ejected ministers. Their history is not glorious, and their heroes are obscure; but it is a domestic tale! When the second Charles was restored, the presbyterians, like every other faction, were to be amused, if not courted. Some of the king's chaplains were selected from among them, and preached once. Their hopes were raised that they should, by some agreement, be enabled to share in that ecclesi astical establishment which they had so often opposed; In Professor Dugald Stewart's first Dissertation on the and the bishops met the presbyters in a convocation at the progress of Philosophy, I find this singular and significant Savoy. A conference was held between the high church, erm. It has occasioned me to reflect on those contests for resuming the seat of power, and the low church, now pros religion, in which a particular faith has been made the osten- trate; that is, between the old clergy who had recently sible pretext, while the secret motive was usually political. been mercilessly ejected by the new, who in their turn The historians, who view in these religious wars only re- were awaiting their fate. The conference was closed ligion itself, have written large volumes, in which we may with arguments by the weaker, and votes by the stronger. never discover that they have either been a struggle to Many curious anecdotes of this conference have come obtain predominance, or an expedient to secure it. The down to us. The presbyterians, in their last struggle, hatreds of ambitious men have disguised their own pur- petitioned for indulgence; but oppressors who had become poses, while Christianity has borne the odium of loosen- petitioners, only showed that they possessed no longer the ing a destroying spirit among mankind; which, had Chris- means of resistance. This conference was followed up tianity never existed, would have equally prevailed in by the Act of Uniformity, which took place on Bartholo human affairs. Of a mortal malady, it is not only necessary mew day, August 24, 1662: an act which ejected Calato know the nature, but to designate it by a right name my's two thousand ministers from the bosom of the estab that we may not err in our mode of treatinent. If we call lished church. Bartholomew day with this party was that religion which we shall find for the greater part is politi-long paralleled, and perhaps is still with the dreadful cal, we are likely to be mistaken in the regimen and the cure. Fox, in his Acts and Monuments,' writes the martyrology of the protestants in three mighty folios; where, in the third, the tender mercies' of the catholics are cut in wood' for those who might not otherwise be enabled to read or spell them. Such pictures are abridgments of long narratives, but they leave in the mind a fulness of horror. Fox made more than one generation shudder; and his volume, particularly this third, chained to a reading-desk in the halls of the great, and in the aisles of churches, often detained the loiterer, as it furnished some new scene of papistical horrors to paint forth on returning to his fire-side. The protestants were then the martyrs, because, under Mary, the protestants had been thrown out of power.

Dodd has opposed to Fox three curious folios, which he calls the Church History of England,' exhibiting a most abundant martyrology of the catholics, inflicted by the hands of the protestants; who in the succeeding reign of Elizabeth, after long trepidations and balancings, were confirmed into power. He grieves over the delusion and seduction of the black-letter romance of honest John Fox, which, he says, 'has obtained a place in protestant

French massacre of that fatal saint's day. The calamity was rather, however, of a private than of a public nature. The two thousand ejected ministers were indeed deprived of their livings; but this was, however, a happier fate than what has often occurred in these contests for the security of political power. This ejection was not like the expul sion of the Moriscoes, the best and most useful subjects of Spain, which was a human sacrifice of half a million of men, and the proscription of many Jews from that land of catholicism; or the massacre of thousands of Huguenots, and the expulsion of more than a hundred thousand by Louis the Fourteenth from France. The presbyterian divines were not driven from their father-land, and compelled to learn another language than their mother-tongue. Destitute as divines, they were suffered to remain as citi zens; and the result was remarkable. These divines could not disrobe themselves of their learning and their piety, while several of them were compelled to become tradesmen; among these the learned Samuel Chandler, whose literary productions are numerous, kept a bookseller's shop in the Poultry.

Hard as this event proved in its result, it was however, pleaded, that ' It was but like for like. And that the his

tory of the like' might not be curtailed in the telling, opposed to Calamy's chronicle of the two thousand ejected ministers stands another, in folio magnitude, of the same sort of chronicle of the clergy of the church of England, with a title by no means less pathetic.

This is Walker's Attempt towards recovering an account of the Clergy of the Church of England who were sequestered, harassed, &c., in the late Times.' Walker is himself astonished at the size of his volume, the number of his sufferers, and the variety of the sufferings. Shall the church,' says he, not have the liberty to preserve the history of her sufferings, as well as the separation to set forth an account of theirs? Can Dr Calamy be acquitted for publishing the history of the Bartholomew sufferers, if I am condemned for writing that of the sepiestered loyalists?' He allows that the number of the ejected amounts to two thousand,' and there were no less than seven or eight thousand of the episcopal clergy imprisoned, banished, and sent a starving,' &c. &c.

which he could easily have done in 1526? But he considered that this novelty would serve to divido the German princes; and he patiently waited till the effect was realized.*

Good men of both parties, mistaking the nature of these religious wars, have drawn horrid inferences! The 'dragonades of Louis XIV, excited the admiration of Bruyere; and Anquetil, in his Esprit de la Ligue,' compares the revocation of the edict of Nantes to a salutary amputation. The massacre of St Bartholomew in its own day, and even recently, has found advocates; a Greek professor at the time asserted that there were two classes of protestants in France, political and religious; and that the late ebullition of public vengeance was solely directed against the former.' Dr M'Crie cursing the catholic with a catholic's curse, execrates the stale sophistry of this calumniator.' But should we allow that the Greek professor who advocated their national crime was the wretch the calvinistic doctor describes, yet the nature of things cannot be altered by the equal violence of Peter Charpentier and Dr M'Cric.

This subject of Political Religionism' is indeed as nice as it curious; politics have been so cunningly worked into the cause of religion, that the parties themselves will never be able to separate them; and to this moment, the most opposite opinions are formed concerning the same events, and the same persons. When public disturbances recent

bons, the protestants, who there are numerous, declared that they were persecuted for religion, and their cry echoed by their brethren the dissenters, resounded in this country. We have not forgotten the ferment it raised here; much was said, and something was done. Our minister however persisted in declaring that it was a mere political affair. It is clear that our government was right on the cause, and those zealous complainants wrong, who only observed the

Whether the reformed were martyred by the catholics, or the catholics executed by the reformed; whether the puritans expelled those of the established church, or the established church ejected the puritans, all seems reducible to two classes, conformists and non-conformists, or, in the political style, the administration and the opposition. When we discover that the heads of all parties are of the same hot temperament, and observe the same evil conduct in similar situations; when we view honest old Latimerly broke out at Nismes on the first restoration of the Bourwith his own hands hanging a mendicant friar on a tree, and the government changing, the friars binding Latimer to the stake; when we see the French catholics cutting out the tongues of the protestan's, that they might no longer protest; the haughty Luther writing submissive apologies to Leo the Tenth and Henry the Eighth for the scurrility with which he had treated them in his writings, and finding that his apologies were received with contempt, then retracting his retractions; when we find that haughti-effect; for as soon as the Bourbonists had triumphed over est of the haughty, John Knox, when Elizabeth first ascended the throne, crouching and repenting of having written his famous excommunication against all female sovereignty; or pulling down the monasteries, from the axiom that when the rookery was destroved, the rooks would never return; when we find his recent apologist admiring, while he apologizes for, some extraordinary proofs of Machiavelian politics-an impenetrable mystery seems to hang over the conduct of men who profess to be guided by the bloodless code of Jesus-but try them by a human standard, and treat them as politicians; and the motives once discovered, the actions are understood!

Two edicts of Charles the Fifth, in 1555, condemned to death the Reformed of the Low Countries, even should they return to the catholic faith, with this exception, however, n favour of the latter, that they shall not be burnt alive, but that the men shall be beheaded, and the women. buried alive! Religion could not then be the real motive of the Spanish cabinet, for in returning to the ancient faith that point was obtained; but the truth is, that the Spanish government considered the reformed as rebels, whom it was not safe to re-admit to the rights of citizenship. The undisguised fact appears in the codicil to the will of the emperor, when he solemnly declares that he had written to the inquisition to burn and extirpate the heretics,' after trying to make Christians of them, because he is convinced that they never can become sincere catholies; and he acknowledges that he had committed a great fault in permitting Luther to return free on the faith of his safe conduct, as the emperor was not bound to keep a promise with a heretic. It is because that I destroyed him not, that heresy has now become strong, which I am convinced might have been stifled with him in its birth.'* The whole conduct of Charles the Fifth in this mighty revolution, was, from its beginning, censured by contemporaries as purely political. Francis the First observed, that the emperor, under the colour of religion, was placing himself at the head of a league to make his way to a predominant monarchy. The pretext of religion is no new thing, writes the Duke of Nevers. Charles the Fifth had never undertaken a war against the protestant princes, bur with the design of rendering the imperial crown hereditary in the house of Austria; and he has only attacked the electoral princes to ruin them, and to abolish their right of election. Had it heen zeal for the catholic religion, would he have delayed from 1519 to 1549 to arm, that he might have extinguished the Lutheran heresy, * Llorente's Critical History of the Inquisition.

the Bonapartists, we heard no more of those sanguinary persecutions of the protestants of Nismes, of which a dissenter has just published a large history. It is a curious fact, that when two writers at the same time were occupied in a life of Cardinal Ximenes, Flechier converted the cardinal into a saint, and every incident in his administration was made to connect itself with his religious character; Marsollier, a writer very inferior to Flechier, shows the cardinal merely as a politician. The elegancies of Flechier were soon neglected by the public, and the deep interests of truth soon acquired, and still retain, for the less elegant writer, the attention of the statesman.

A modern historian has observed, that the affairs of religion were the grand fomenters and promoters of the thirty years' war, which first brought down the powers of the North to mix in the politics of the Southern states.' The fact is indisputable, but the cause is not so apparent. Gustavus Adolphus, the vast military genius of his age, had designed, and was successfully attempting, to oppose the overgrown power of the imperial house of Austria, which had long aimed at an universal monarchy in Europe; a circumstance which Philip IV weakly hinted at to the world when he placed this motto under his arms-' Sine ipso factum est nihil;' an expression applied to Jesus Christ by St John.

TOLERATION.

An enlightened toleration is a blessing of the last ageit would seem to have been practised by the Romans, when they did not mistake the primitive Christians for seditious members of society; and was inculcated even by Mahomet, in a passage in the Koran, but scarcely practised by his followers. In modern history, it was condemned, when religion was turned into a political contest, under the aspiring house of Austria-and in Spain-and in France. It required a long time before its nature was comprehended-and to this moment it is far from being clear, either to the tolerators, or the tolerated.

It does not appear, that the precepts or the practice of Jesus and the apostles inculcate the compelling of any to be Christians:† vet an expression employed in the nuptial parable of the great supper, when the hospitable

* Naudé Considerations Politiques, p. 115. See a curious note in Harte's Life of Gustavus Adolphus, ii, 129.

Bishop Barlow's Several miscellaneous and weighty Cases of Conscience resolved, 1692. His Case of a Toleration in Matters of Religion,' addressed to Robert Boyle, p. 39. This volume was not intended to have been given to the world, a circumstance which does not make it the less curious.