enslaved and plundered ; insisted on some reparation; threatened rebellion, rather than remain longer in the thraldom to which they had been reduced; succeeded, through the aid of Irish papistry, in obtaining some improvement of their condition, are still struggling for further improvement, and will, we humbly hope, never relax in their efforts till they are restored to that political influence in the state which they possessed before the Reformation.

The consciousness of having trespassed too much already on the patience of our readers, compels us to omit innumerable illustrations of the tendencies of the true Protestant Church,” which it would require some philosophical ingenuity to explain away satisfactorily. We therefore must simply beg of our readers to recollect that the history of England from the Reformation to the middle of the last century, and of Irish Orangeism to within the last few years, is the history of the genuine, unadulterated, pure, and undefiled working of “ the true Protestant Church;" - that all the atrocities, all the

desecrations which it records, of those principles of truth, and right, and equity, that are regarded with veneration even among the untutored children of nature, had the support and sanction of that establishıment, and were considered by it and its friends essential to its salvation ;-that it is only since " dissent, and Popery, and infidelity have been stalking stark naked through the land, seeking whom they may devour,” that the administration of justice has been improved, and public men have affected the slightest regard for what are commonly called public virtues--that those of whom the nation is proudest were by no means the idols of the Establishment, or believers in its infallibility—that up to the present moment its greatest friends are the patrons of all manner of corruptions and abuses—that it has ever been the chief agent in crushing, degrading, and libelling the people, and in robbing them of all their ancient privileges-that it still continues the chief agent in opposing all their attempts at improvement-that, in short, in every quarter of the globe where it has been able to rear its head, it is invariably found leagued with the enemies of the first and dearest rights of mankind--and then conclude that it is the only cradle and ægis of human liberty—the only palladium of the British constitution.

But whatever Protestants have been, or whatever Catholics were before the Reformation, since that event these have been as devoted to arbitrary power as the most “enlightened" of their opponents. When, where, and how have

they proved this devotion? The principal charge against Mary was on the score of religious persecution. She did not attempt to set up a despotism or rule without Parliament, or make it a cipher. When a "disenthralling" fellow, "that had been Cromwell's servant, and much employed by him in the suppression of monasteries," wrote a book to show how she might raise herself above all law, "and rule according to her pleasure," and caused it to be delivered to her through the Spanish ambassador, she, poor benighted creature, utterly ignorant of the gospel rights of princes, "disliked it, and judged it contrary to the oath she had made at her coronation," but gave it to Gardiner, and begged of him to state his honest opinion of it; who, after reading it, declared it a pity "that so noble and virtuous a lady should be endangered with the pernicious devices of such lewd and subtle sycophants, for the book is naught, and most horrible to be thought on."+ The noble, wise, excellent, and "well-worthy-of-observation" provisions, whereby the laws and customs of England, and the rights and privileges of the subjects, were secured from danger, and Spaniards and other foreigners were forbidden to be appointed to any offices in these kingdoms, by the statute settling her marriage with Philip, extort eulogy from Coke.‡ That these provisions were owing "almost wholly" to Gardiner, is acknowledged by Burnet, who says he adopted them in consequence of the preceding incident, lest the queen should by any chance, after her marriage with Philip, fall into such designs against the liberties of the people. Of what Protestant bishop can such a tale be told? The singular and wonderful liberty" of the people, and their freedom from taxation, under Mary, are the theme of admiration with even the Venetian ambassador.§ The Catholics supported Charles I against his opponents. Will that be a charge against them by the Church of England? But whom else could they join? Were they to throw themselves at the feet of the men who, "for the honour and glory of the Lord," would butcher, pauperise, and enslave them? They had not been taught so to disregard the first rights of human nature as to submit to voluntary servitude on any terms, even though their own enthralment might serve as a decoy to secure the enthralment of others. Such feats of Helot heroism they left to the disciples of "enlightenment."|| Did the Catholic Parliament in this coun

* Burnet, ii. 559.

§ Lingard, vol, vii. 245, note.

See the conduct of the Dissenters as to the passing of the Test and Corporation Act. 25 Ch. 2, c. 2.

try under James II, imitate his Protestant Parliaments in Scotland and England ? By one of their statutes they deprived him of even the power of pardoning; and his own attorneygeneral, Sir Richard Nagle, refused to pass a warrant of his for a pardon, contrary to the statute, telling him plainly to his face, it was not in his power to grant one.

How unlike a “ true Protestant” dispensing prerogative lawyer! By another act they did that very thing which ninety years afterwards acquired such glory for the Protestants, and compensated in some slight degree for their preceding devotion to ihraldomthey declared that the Parliaments of England could not bind Ireland, and provided that no writs of error should be sued in that country, the preamble containing the very same principle afterwards relied on in 1782, that though the Irish people were not represented in those parliaments, yet "of late times some have pretended” that their acts were binding on Ireland; “and as those late opinions are against justice and natural equity, so they tend to the great oppression of the people here, and to the overthrow of the fundamental constitution of this realm,"* &c. &c. Yet it required ninety years' experience and “ enlightenment,” the example and excitement of the American revolution, and the convincing arguments and fiery eloquence of a man, (whose very name, by-the-by, was presumptive evidence of his being only a professional believer in the Thirty-nine Articles), to inculcate this first principle of human right and the British constitution on the Protestants of this kingdom. It was because our Catholic fathers could not be bribed or bullied into betraying the rights and interests of their country, that those illustrious specimens of Protestantism --the old Whigs—contrived by a manæuvre to rob them of the franchise. In short, it was by an Irish majority the slave-trade was abolished, and the Reform Bill carried; it is by an Irish majority the friends of popular privileges are now kept in office; and by such a majority will the people of England finally recover all those ancient rights, of which the “disenthralling and impelling enlightenment” has robbed them.

Why, then, charge papists with devotion to arbitrary power? Why charge them with the great fire of London?

Art. II.-Histoire du Pape Pie VII. Par M. Le Chevalier

Artaud, ancien Chargé-d'Affaires de France à Rome, à Florence, et à Vienne, de l'Academie des Inscriptions et Belles Lettres, &c. &c. &c.

8vo, Deuxième Edition. Paris: 1837. T is not easy to account for the apparent indifference with

which the history of Pius VII has been regarded in these countries. Nearly twenty years have been permitted to elapse since the close of his long and interesting reign, without a single permanent record in the Catholic literature of England. It is true, that the exigencies of our literary position have left but little leisure from duties of absolute necessity; but it is almost incredible, notwithstanding, that, in a country for which it possesses a peculiar interest, not even a single volume should have been spared, to a period the most eventful, perhaps, since the early struggles of Christianity-a period of alternate triumph and humiliation for the Church--crowding together within its chequered history, incidents of the most opposite character, and events which by their nature might almost seem whole centuries asunder.

Never were the prospects of religion on the continent more gloomy and, to speak humanly, more desperate, than in the years which immediately preceded the pontificate of Pius VII. The hurricane, which desolated the social world, seemed to have spent but little of its fury; the gore was yet fresh on the crimsoned floors of the Carmelites; the shattered altar and desecrated temple, still told that Impiety had firmly enthroned herself where the holy place once stood.' The national councils of France heard, without a murmur, save, perhaps, of applause, open professions of the atheistic creed, * -scornful disavowals of any "God save Nature;" faith became all but synonymous with imbecility; the name of Christian was a bye-word of reproach; the last trace of Christian history was blotted from the annals of France; and the silly dates of an anti-social republic, had usurped the place of the blessed era of the world's redemption !

And it would seem as if this monstrous state of things had begun to acquire permanence and consistency. The earlier impieties of the revolution might be regarded as a passing frenzy, whose very violence must produce a certain and speedy re-action. But the unholy spectres, whose gambols had then appalled the world, now seemed to assume a form equally revolting, but less vague and undefined. Infidelity took upon herself the guise of religion. The churches of St. Généviève and Nôtre Dame were profaned by her service; and the miscalled rites of L'Etre Suprème proclaimed, more significantly than even atheism itself, the hopeless corruption of all true worship. How were the glories of the 66 eldest daughter of the Church” humbled in the dust, when, in the face of once Catholic France, a solemn decree of the conven. tion declared, that “the French people acknowledged the existence of a Supreme Being, and the immortality of the soul ?" * It was, indeed, an awful period; fearfully were men “ become vain in their thoughts, and their foolish heart darkened,” when even this mockery of religion was among the causes which brought its proposer, Robespierre, to the scaffold!

The “ Reign of Terror” had passed in name; but its influence on religion still subsisted. The respite of which the commencement of 1795 had given hopes, was but the lull of the storm, gathering strength for a new outburst. The decrees of 1792 and 1793 were soon revived; and when, in the following year, men began once more, in very satiety, to sicken of these enormities, the fatal 18th Fructidor (Sept. 4), by restoring the power of the Directory, renewed the same bloody scenes. They were. now extended to the Low Countries; and in the proscriptions of the Isle de Rhé, the world witnessed a rehearsal of the horrors which had desolated France in the first years of the revolution. The nominal toleration of religion only rendered its subjugation more complete. The constitutional Church of France was among the worst of its scandals ; its bastard hierarchy and cringing priesthood were despised by the people, whom they had the baseness to betray. On the 7th and following days of November, 1793, twenty-seven of these wretched men laid down, in the presence of the National Assembly, the insignia of the office which they affected to despise; rejected the cross and ring as consecrated baubles, unworthy a citizen or a philosopher. The scandals from within lent double energy to the assaults from without; infidelity spoke aloud, and with impunity. And what wonder? The sentinel had fled from his post, or held back in crouching silence; and thus the writings of the earlier school were piety and innocence itself, when contrasted with those which ap