that glorious contest, in which reason trampled bigotry underfoot, yet have all these events been so ably and copiously detailed by former writers as to render it unnecessary to enlarge upon them on the present occasion; I shall therefore content myself to preface the curious document, which is the object of this communication, by observing, that whilst the natives of northern Europe were eagerly diffusing and gratefully participating in the benefits of a "simple, rational, and enlightened piety," their southern neighbours should seem to have evinced no less zeal in their pertinacious adherence to a faith, with little exception as impious, as it is delusive and preposterous in its constitution. A melancholy instance of this blind bigotry which prevailed in the southern parts of Germany so late as the seventeenth century, is found in the Election of Joseph of Nazareth, the foster father of Jesus Christ, to the dignity of Grand Burg-grave of Bavaria!!! Were it not an event officially authenticated and existing on public record, well indeed might even the most credulous be tempted to reject it as the invention of some enemy of religion; well indeed might those, who are acquainted with the high state of civilization to which Bavaria has in our days attained, be justified in regarding as a daring fiction, what, alas! is a fact so notorious. It was in the year 1664 that Ferdinand Maria, elector of Bavaria, bonâ fide raised "Joseph, the revered foster-father of Jesus Christ, to the rank of Grand Burg-grave, Supreme-territorial-Administrator, Omnipotent and universal Guardian, Generalissimo and Iatron of all Bavaria," and he was solemnly proclaimed as such by a herald, amidst ringing of bells, salute of cannon, beat of drum and music playing. This pious act was celebrated in the church of St. Joseph, which had just been erected and bestowed on the fraternity of the bare-footed Carmelites; and Pater Andreas a Santa Theresia, in praise and honour of "the most glorious St. Joseph," pronounced a suitable oration, which was published at Münich and dedicated to the Elec tor. A sufficient idea may be formed of the epistle dedicatory by the subsequent excerpts: "The fame of the pious land of Bavaria extends to the extremities of the earth, for the Bavarian standards of war have been unfurled and carried about with the image of the Virgin Mary and with sacred hymns; and on gold and silver coin has the effigy of that ever blessed queen of heaven been stamped!"-" Bavaria's link of piety hath the Elector now adorned with a new symbol of grace, by uniting Saint Joseph, a third person, as consort to the virgin bride, with the two holy persons of the incarnate, self-begotten Trinity, Jesus and Mary!!"-" Christ is the Sun, and Mary the Moon, whilst Joseph as the great Star, gathereth his rays from the Sun and Moon, reflecting them back on Bavaria!" -" The seraphic mother, St. Theresia, was much enamoured of the divine Joseph, and proclaime I his name throughout the world; wherefore the Virgin Mary appeared unto her in all glory to return her thanks!"-Such a thanksgiving hath 1 hath the Elector now to expect from both celestial virgins, inasmuch as he himself and all the nobility, animated by his example, have embodied themselves in the goodly brotherhood of the divine Joseph; have in his great chapel erected a superb altar to him;" and so forth. " Whereas his electoral highness hath most graciously been pleased to hearken unto this, perhaps somewhat prolix, panegyric, when recited from the pulpit, may it please him to cast a favourable eye on it when imprinted on paper, &c." Hereupon we find the good man recommending himself and his monastery to the Elector's protection and patronage, promising him his daily intercession in his prayers, and then entering upon an oration, of which, as it is also somewhat prolix, I shall content myself with giving an extract. ORATION of the Carmelite Andreas à Santa Theresia, pronounced in Munich, at the Festival in honour of St. Joseph. "An important task hath this day devolved upon me! I ought to represent at once a trumpeter, and a gunner, a leader of the choir and a commander, a messenger and a preacher. As a trumpeter I should, with the clear sound of God's holy word, in perfect humility, proclaim the admirable Joseph; proclaim, that his Electoral Highness hath most graciously created him Grand Burg-grave of Bavaria! I should be as a gunner, placed on the edge of this pulpit, to apply the seraphic match of the Holy Ghost to the cannons of your hearts, loaded as they are with sacred love! The duty of a leader of the choir should I discharge by beating proper time to the music and organ of your prayers! As a commander I ought to assemble you, soldiers of Christ! under the ensign of the cross, that you may receive the most illustrious Joseph with the presented arms of faith, and a feu de joic formed by hymns of praise! I am sent hither as a messenger to congratulate the divine Joseph, in the name of his Highness the Elector, upon his reaching our frontiers, and escort him in suitable dignity to court! Lastly, I have to fulfil the task of a preacher, by inciting your hearts to render homage unto the blessed Joseph, and confide in his might and power in these perilous and sanguinary times. For my ready tongue, like a living pen, possesseth not the power to depict to you the glory of this Santissimus (most holy one). He was betrothed to the Empress of Heaven; he was the foster-father and parent of our blessed Saviour; his guardian angel; the first Christ in the world, and above all apostles, angels, prophets, and saints, inasmuch as he is a near relative of the Holy Trinity, and to be esteemed a Prince of the Blood of God! Finally, he hath been chosen patron of all Bavaria, although many saints of heaven canvassed for that dignity. "O ye heavens, open then your portals! Encircle our festival with your glory! Ye seraphic dukes! ye cherubim princes, be ye not ashamed to render due service unto my illustrious Joseph, and join your voices to the heavenly chorus hallelujah! Ring a joyous peal, ye empty bells of metal! Fire, ye gunners! Sound a "Vivat" to our our Joseph, O ye trumpeters! (Nola bene, Here the trumpets are blown.) "Amongst many other glorious titles conferred on the Arch-father Joseph, in his original and right noble letters patent from the Imperial Chancery of God, he is called by the Arch-chancellor Matthew, "A Man: Jacob genuit Joseph virum!* But he calls none of his illustrious forefathers by that name, not even Abraham or Isaac; not even David or Solomon;-none but him. Well may you ask, why then him above all the rest? I should have been unable to answer this question had it not been elucidated to me by St. Chrysostom. Our Joseph is called a man, that we may not fall into the pardonable error of esteeming him for his exceeding excellence a God, and worshipping him as such. Although he is no God, we may entitle him a Saviour, for in the flight into Egypt he was the Saviour of our Saviour! Therefore is it impossible to place a mightier patron over Bavaria than the Third person of the Holy Trinity, under whose protection Jesus and Mary have been. "He is henceforward General in Chief of all religious institutions throughout the dukedom of Bavaria. Of what avail are all other saints against him, the Arch-saint? The Divines pray to Thomas of Aquino, the Philosophers to Santa Catharina; Ino is patron of the Lawyers, Damianus of the Physicians, and Luke of the Painters; Homobonus protects the Tailors, Crispin the Shoemakers; Florian extinguishes conflagrations, Rochus dispels the plague, Lucia heals diseases of the eyes, Apollonia cures the tooth-ache, Blasius the stiff-neck, and Peter, fevers. If a pious christian lose any thing out of his pocket, Antonius of Padua shews where it is to be found again. But what is all this in comparison to the divine Joseph? who can protect alike shoemakers and lawyers, tailors and philosophers, and with equal facility can either cure the tooth-ache, or find what is lost. For in reality it is He who governs heaven and earth; although Christ is accounted king of heaven, yet he fulfils with filial tenderness every wish of the most illustrious Virgin his mother, and she again is obedient to Joseph her husband; for, caput mulieris vir est; consequently, then, Joseph is Lord of heaven and earth, and disposeth of the universe as it seemeth best to him. Verily, as Alexander the Great exclaimed, on beholding the heathen monster and philosopher Diogenes in his tub, "Were I not Alexander, I could wish to be Diogenes;" even so might Christ exclaim, "Were I not the Son of God, I could wish to be Joseph!" There is much more of this kind of oratory, but the readers of the Athenæum will probably be fully satisfied with the preceding specimen, which is faithfully translated from the original. • Thus it stands in the original Oration. H. W S. Sir, CARDINAL YORK. To the Editor of the Athenæum. WILL you allow me to correct a slight mistake in your account of the death of that person, in regard to the medals. They bear the following inscriptions, viz. on the obverse, Hon. IX. Mag. Brit. Fr. et Hib. Rex. Fid. Def. Card. Ep. Tusc. and on the reverse, a city (or Rome) with a figure of religion, a lion couchant at her feet, and Non desideriis Hominum, sed voluntate Dei. I bought mine at Rome some years ago for half-a-guinea. It is in large bronze. Sir, ON THE BIBLIOGRAPHICAL SCIENCE. To the Editor of the Athenaum. I MAY venture to affirm that there are few persons more tolerant than myself of the different tastes and pursuits of mankind, or more ready to admit that one man is not accountable to another for the object on which he chuses to employ his time and pains. But when, not content with personal gratification, or the applause of congenial associates, the votary of any particular study claims for it a certain rank in general estimation, his pretensions become a fair subject for discussion, and he is not to complain if attempts be made to reduce his merits to their due level. It would be easy to multiply examples of the exaggerated importance and dignity given to different pursuits by their respective followers-as, indeed, the propensity to such exaggeration is universal-but I shall at present confine myself to the case of what is termed the bibliographical science. The object of this science is books, and the matter of books is literature. In order, therefore, to form accurate notions on the subject, we must seek a definition of literature. It may be largely defined, The workings of the mind committed to writing. What, then, is the value of these workings? There is no human mind through which abundance of ideas do not pass, and which does not in some measure operate upon them and make them its own. These ideas, communicated from man to man by the faculty of speech, form the matter of conversation-one of the most delightful employments of a rational being, and his peculiar distinction from the inferior animals. But the notions poured out in unpremeditated discourse must in general be crude and inexact, nor can the hearer's recollection be relied upon to retain every thing which converse may afford worthy of preservation. It was, therefore, a noble invention to give shape and stability to thought, whereby it might not only only be pondered upon and drest to the greatest advantage by the mind in which it originated, but might be communicated to other minds without any limit of time or place. The art of writing is, in fact, the great instrument of human improvement, and the principal discrimination between the savage and the civilized state. But this art cannot of itself render valuable what is intrinsically worthless; and though it may be presumed that the deliberate conceptions of any individual are more choice and mature than his casual effusions, yet we know from daily experience that the labour of thinking has no power to call forth what does not exist, and that the process of committing thoughts to paper does not convert them from trite and frivolous to ingenious and solid. A trifler with a pen in his hand is only a more prolix and tedious trifler than he has power to be with his tongue; and ignorance and prejudice generally acquire little correction in their passage from the brain to the page. The progress from speech to writing, and from writing to publication, was anciently so indecisive, that the imagination could not readily be deluded by it. Cicero on some important occasion makes an unpremeditated harangue. It is listened to with admiration, and some of the auditors write down at home all they recollect of it. Copies are handed about, and at length the orator himself gives it in an enlarged and corrected form. Of this, transcripts are made and deposited in libraries; and thus the oration is handed down to posterity, and becomes a part of the works of the immortal Tully. But of the estimation which attracted this notice and caused it to be preserved, the just fame of the author was the basis; and if any notorious senatorian babbler had attempted by a similar process to give his effu. sions currency and perpetuity, he would have been disappointed. The act of publication, therefore, at that time, was only consequent upon celebrity already acquired; and there was no method of calling the public attention to a literary composition simply upon the ground of its being a book. But the invention of printing has not only infinitely facilitated the means of diffusing an author's productions, but has afforded a circumstance whereby the distinction between a writing intended for private use, and one addressed to the public, is definitely marked, and a character is assumed by the latter, capable of imposing upon one who does not consider things in the abstract. A printed book, accumulating round it a number of incidents relative to time, place, size, typographical execution, and the like, is not less a subject for description and classification than an article in natural history, and may be viewed, as a production of art, in a light totally different from that of the literary value of its contents. It is from a view thus directed that a knowledge of books has arisen, which stands entirely apart from a knowledge of letters; and it is for the purpose of preventing the two species from being confounded, and the first from arrogating the dignity which belongs only to the second, that I have engaged in this disquisition. In the bibliographical science the circumstances which principally engage attention are title pages, dates, printers |