"applied by a modern, candid, liberal and disbigotted Romanist to these bulls. The effect " of the Pope's decrees would have been to plunge "this country into the most fierce and sanguinary "civil war, which this or any other country had ever witnessed. They deposed the sovereign, "and excited treason in the subject. They substi"tuted rebellion for loyalty, and Romanism for (c religion. The Protestant would perhaps use

strange and uncourteous epithets against them; "they would appear to him savage, shameful, "abominable and detestable. But the liberal "Romanist avoids all those bigotted phrases, and "calls the bulls illaudable; - yes, - they are "illaudable!!! they cannot be quite approved ; on the contrary, they deserved censure. Oh ! "spirit of the martyrs!"

Thus You attempt to hold me out to ridicule, and to what is worse.

But, what have I really said of this bull?

In my "Historical Memoirs," I say of the bull,

"That, it is ever to be condemned and ❝ lamented;

"That, the Pope assumed by it, a right, the "exercise of which Christ had explicitly dis"claimed for himself;

That, it tended to produce a civil war between "the queen's Protestant and Catholic subjects, "with all the horrors of a disputed succession;

"That it necessarily involved a multitude of respectable and conscientious individuals in the "bitterest and most complicated distress:"

I ask, "what could have fascinated the Pontiff, otherwise virtuous aud pious, as all histo"rians describe him, into the adoption of such a "measure?

I call it, " a proceeding, which could not but "irritate the queen and all her subjects, whether "Catholics or Protestants, who were attached to "her by affection or a sense of duty."

In my fifteenth Letter to Dr. Southey, (p. 267), I observe to him, that "he cannot express himself "of it, and the renewal of it by Sixtus Quintus, "in stronger terms of condemnation, than I have "used in my Historical Memoirs."

In a former letter, (p. 29), I have cited from my Revolutions of the Germanic Empire, and my Historical Memoirs, my opinions of the claim of the Popes to temporal power, and the acts by which they attempted to enforce those claims, among which I mention expressly and particularly the bull of Pius V :—I call the claims unfounded,impious,-hostile to the peace of the world,-extravagant and visionary ;-I call them enormities, and one of the greatest misfortunes that ever happened to Christianity.

What stronger words of reprobation of the bull could be found?

But if all this was wanting, your representations of my language would still be most inexcusable, as I

the real meaning of the word "illaudable," is immeasurably different from that which You ascribe to it. Milton thus uses it

"Strength from truth divided, and from just,

"Illaudable, nought merits but dispraise."

Besides, when you wrote the passage in question, were You not fully aware, that I alluded to the celebrated verse of Virgil,

"Aut illaudati nescit Busiridis aras?"

And that Aulus Gellius, Heyné, and all the commentators, justify Virgil's application of the word "illaudati" to the detestable Busiris, by its being a word, denoting infamy ;-a word which describes a person never to be named, never to be re"corded, unworthy of any mention."

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5.-You then mention, (p. 209), the massacre at Paris, on St. Bartholomew's day, and the approbation of it by Pope Gregory.-Permit me to say, with Doctor Milner,*" As to the horrid deed "itself of blood and perfidy, I will not at

tempt to justify it, as the king, the queen "dowager, and their ministers did, at the time, "when it happened, by pretending that the Hu"guenots were on the point of executing a plot to "destroy them, and to overturn the government; "because it is now clear from history, that no such plot existed at that particular time. I will not

even extenuate its atrociousness by expatiating on "the two real conspiracies of Amboise and Meaux, "for seizing on the very king and his court, and for * Letters to a Prebendary, Letter IV.

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"subverting the constitution of their country, which "the Calvinists had actually attempted to execute; or on the four pitched battles, which they had "fought against the armies of this their sovereign; or on their treachery in delivering up Havre de "Grace, the key of the kingdom, into the hands of

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a foreign potentate, queen Elizabeth; or even upon "the massacres, with which they themselves had "previously inundated all France. So far from "this, I am ready to exclaim with Thuanus, or with "yourself, in contemplating the horrors of St. Bar"tholomew's day, Excidat illa dies ævo, nec postera "credant sæcula.”—-If I were satisfied that

Gregory XIII. had approved of the foul deed of "St. Bartholomew's day, after having viewed it in "the same clear and steady light, in which you and "I behold it, now that the clouds of royal calum

ny in which it was invested have been dispersed, "I should not even then, think that persecution was proved to be an article of his faith, but "I should judge him to have partaken of Charles's "and Catherine's sanguinary disposition, in op66 position to the character which historians have stamped upon him. But you will recollect the "infinite pains which the French king took by letters, ambassadors, rejoicings, and medals, to "make both his subjects and foreign princes, but most of all, the Pope believe, that in killing the Huguenots, he had only taken a necessary measure "of self-defence to preserve his own life, together "with the constitution and religion of the kingdom.

"If we admit these accounts to have been believed "at Rome and Madrid, as there is every reason "to suppose they actually were, the rejoicings at "these courts will put on a very different appearance from that in which you exhibit them."

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6. You assert, (p. 212, note), that Doctor "Lingard, with the utmost unfairness, takes no "notice of the approbation which his party gave to the massacre, when they supposed it to be a religious action." Neither is any notice taken of this approbation by Hume or Carte. What right then have you to select Doctor Lingard for your information?

7.-Proceeding through your pages, I reach the 229th, in which You say, " It is not a matter "either of curiosity or of exultation to me, or to

any Protestant, to observe the deplorable attempts "which you have so uselessly made to reconcile "this petition of Father Campian, and the dispensa"tion for his temporary obedience, with the asserted "perfect loyalty of the Romanists at this period." Now, so far from attempting "to reconcile the "petition of Father Campian, and the dispensa❝tion for his temporary obedience, with the loyalty " of the Roman Catholics," I have unequivocally condemned in severe terms both the petition and the dispensation. In my "Historical Memoirs "of the English, Irish and Scottish Catholics,' I say," The dispensation has been termed a "mitigation of the bull of Pius; now, in respect "to Elibabeth and her heretical subjects, it scarce

* Vol. I. p. 366.