siastics of the Anglo Saxon and Norman age. Yet this part of the work is certainly the best executed. The secularity and degradation, which followed the wholesale conversions of the Saxons, and the authoritative enforcement of Christianity by princes and prélates, are every where manifest through this portion of the work, and though little aid is furnished to enable the reader to judge what was the state of religion and piety, yet ample information is supplied of the system of church politics, and of the growth of superstition. According to the description Mr. Southey has presented, it sufficiently appears, that the decline of pure and primitive piety went on in the inverse ratio, to the power, splendor, and authority of the church, that is of the clergy-till at length, after many an ineffectual struggle, the pope was acknowleded, and the shackles of priestly domination were firmly rivetted. It is evident, that amidst all the superstition which grew so fast, and spread so wide, and took such deep root, there were yet remaining many fine specimens of ardent devotion and apostolic zeal; and we cannot but remark, that large episodes are devoted to the histories and legends of those ecclesiastics, who intermeddled most with secular affairs, and who were of the most importance in courts and cabinets, while others of less noisy but more pious memory, are either overlooked, or merely glanced at. The ages of popish and monkish superstition are handled with ability; but the history of the Reformation is by no means satisfactory. The Lollards are represented as seditious persons, holding opinions inimical to the peace of society, and yet in other places the author describes them as eminent for piety. It may comport with Mr. Southey's views of sedition, to condemn the principles of men, who felt that papal tyranny had so incorporated itself

with the constitution, that the duty of resisting the one involved the necessity of resistance to the other; but shall we now rake up an impeachment of their characters, who were the first to lift the arm against the iron-handed oppressor? or shall Englishmen be told, that these first assertors of the claims of the Scripture, and the rights of men were very dangerous persons, and that the state did right in suppressing them-only, to be sure, they ought not to have been handled quite so cruelly? Oh! no, Mr. Southey, you may write this stuff, but the names of Wicliffe, Lord Cobham, and the Lollards, will be dear to British Christians as long as the Bible is loved, and the broad page of history open to general inspection.

The second volume, which commences with Henry VIII., and ends with the Non Jurors, furnishes ample occasion for comment and censure. But the task is one for which we have neither space nor inclination. The sens moral of the whole, is the perfection of the Church of England. For instance, Archbishop Laud's character is whitened so thick, that if the next generation should adopt Mr. Southey's work as an authority, he will certainly receive a beatification; already he is a saint and martyr in the Laureate's Calendar, and may now be advantageously introduced into the next edition of the "Vision of Judgment"-and could but a few unlucky pages in history be obliterated, there is no saying how soon he might receive an apotheosis. Through about forty pages Mr. Southey extends his account of this haughty and cruel prelate extenuating his crimes, heaping opprobrium on the whole body of puritans, as if they had generally been concerned in his death, and at last honouring a wretched creature, who had laboured to establish arbitrary power in the monarch, and the mummery

of papacy in the church, with the title of martyr; sympathizing in his degradation, and holding forth all his persecutors as murderers and savages, a disgrace to human nature. Thus Mr. Southey writes"A baser triumph never was obtained by faction, nor was any triumph ever more basely celebrated. Even after this murder had been committed with all the mockery of law, his memory was assailed in libels of blacker virulence, (if that be possible), than those by which the deluded populace had been instigated to cry out for his blood; and to this day, those who have inherited the opinions of the puritans, repeat with unabashed effrontery the imputations against him, as if they had succeeded to their implacable temper, and their hardihood of slander also. More grateful is it to observe how little is in the power of of

malice, even when in the dispensations

Providence it is permitted to do its worst. The enemies of Laud cut off from him, at the utmost, a few short years of infirmity and pain; and this was all they could do! They removed him from the sight of calamities, which would have been to him ten-fold more grievous than death; and they afforded him an opportunity of displaying at his trial, and on the scaffold, as in a public theatre, a presence of mind, a strength of intellect, a calm and composed and composed temper, an heroic and saintly magnanimity, which he never could have been known to possess, if he had not thus been put to the proof. Had they contented themselves with stripping him of his rank and fortune, and letting him go to the grave a poor and broken-hearted old man, their calumnies might have proved so effectual, that he would have been more noted now for his infirmities, than for his great and eminent virtues. But they tried him in the burning fiery furnace of affliction, and then his sterling worth was assayed and proved. And the martyrdom of Cranmer is not more inexpiably disgraceful to the Roman Catholic, than that of Laud to the Puritan persecutors."p. 437.

But, gentle reader, who is it you have here read of? - that kind-hearted, saintly Laud, who pulled off his hat in open court, and gave thanks to God, when the sentence of the Star Chamber, that Protestant inquisition, was pronounced on the excellent Leighton-that he should be publicly whipped, stand on the pillory, have both his ears cut off, his nose slit, and afterward lie in

prison for life-that very Laud, who was the prime mover of all the illegal projects, monopolies, loans, ship-money, fines, and Star Chamber persecutions, by which both church and king were overthrown, the promoter of the book of sports, the discourager of foreign Protestants, the persecutor of Bishop Williams, and the savage and inhuman enemy of the puritans-in short, far higher authorities than either Mr. Southey or the Quarterly Review have alleged, that he was the chief author of the troubles that afflicted England. Mr. Southey may sneer as he pleases at the effrontery of those inheritors of puritanic opinions who repeat the accusations against him to this day, but he knows as well as ourselves, that it is not puritans alone who associate the memory of Laud with the vilest transactions which ever disgraced the English church, but that Burnet, Rapin, and all impartial historians agree, with all Englishmen who love and maintain liberty and toleration, in holding up the character of this proud and arbitrary prelate to that obloquy which it will never lose, though a thousand laureates should successively chant its praises. We can join Mr. Southey most cordially in condemning his persecutors; they were under the influence of resentment, and he fell a victim to that passion in those he had first made his enemies, by the most cruel and extensive oppressions. The Scots, the Presbyterians, and Prynne, whom he had so savagely mutilated, were the parties implicated in his death, and that death partook as little of the nature of martyrdom as that of any soldier who fell in the civil wars. But because Laud wore a mitre and lawn sleeves, the poetic imagination of Mr. Southey could see nothing in his execution but martyrdom.

Laud and Charles are the blessed martyrs of the Church of

England; whereas the obvious fact is, and so most Englishmen firmly believe, that they both fell victims to their own intolerant spirits and arbitrary measures. Neither Laud nor Charles fell for their religious opinions-they were not persecuted because they were Episcopalians, but they were prosecuted for arbitrary and illegal measures, as public persons; while the puritans suffered for personal and strictly religious opinions. We have made these remarks because we have observed, in several highchurch publications, as well as in Mr. Southey's Book of the Church, an eager effort to persuade the people of England, that Laud and Charles were martyrs. We can only say, that as none but churchmen and laureates write these legends, so, we trust, none others believe them. But, alas! every thing connected with the Established Church awakens the tenderest sympathies in Mr. Southey's breast, while hundreds and thousands of poor puritans may be mutilated, ruined, or burnt, without extorting from him a sigh.

We had marked many other passages for exposure, but shall pass them by. The whole history of the Elizabethan age, the Commonwealth, and downwards, is a tissue of misrepresentation, garbled and partial statement, and special pleading. Every thing, in short, is made to bear on the cause of THE CHURCH. All that its administrators did was wise, pious, and scriptural, and all that its enemies alleged against its proceedings was frivolous and malignant. We could point out innumerable passages in which Mr. Southey, upon his own bare ipse dixit (for he scarce once condescends to quote any authority-except, perchance, the Quarterly Review and then, no doubt, articles from his own pen), attempts to set aside the testimony of accredited history, and even to resist the

evidence of facts and documents. It cannot be doubted that Mr. S.'s book will be read; it is well written, concise, and interesting. It must be praised, for it falls in dexterously with the spirit of the times; it fawns, and flatters, and idolizes the church; it condemns, maligns, and scorns the sectaries; in fact, it is all that Archbishop Laud himself could have wished, and much more than, in this degenerate age, the Quarterly Review itself could have expected, save from the pen of one of its own contributors. But as a Book of the Church, it is partial and inaccurate; miscellaneous rather than comprehensive; exhibiting sketches of church history, and that in particular lights and aspects, rather than a full and fair statement of facts on all sides. The work is materially defective in two essential qualities; it displays no discrimination of the spiritual nature of Christianity, but measures the state of the church by the false standards of an external uniformity, secular grandeur, and flourishing priesthood. Its second great defect is a total abstinence from authorities, even upon points where the author chooses to repeat oft-refuted statements, and to resist the evidence of the most important documents. We have observed, too, an attempt, both here and in one or two other quarters, as we conjecture, all from the same pen, to invalidate the hitherto unquestioned authority of Neal. In referring to the High Commission Court, Mr. Southey endeavours to vindicate that most iniquitous commission, and to overthrow Neal's testimony in the following passage.

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"They had authority to inquire into tical laws, by the oaths of twelve men, as all offences which fell under the ecclesiasalso by witnesses, and all other ways and means they could devise," &c.

To this Mr. Southey appends the following note.

،، ، That is, says Neal, by inquisition,

by the rack, by torture, or by any other ways and means that forty-four sovereign judges shall invent. Surely this should have been limited to LAWFUL ways and means.' (Hist. Pur. Vol. i. 414.) And surely this most prejudiced and dishonest of all historians, ought to have observed, that it was so limited twice in the very commission itself."

Now instead of making good this charge of dishonesty and prejudice against Neal, Mr. Southey has only prepared a fatal specimen of the delinquencies he condemns. The first section of the High Commission is in the precise words Neal has quoted, and no limitation is set to the means the judges are to use in inquiring into all heretical opinions, seditious books, &c. The limitations to which Mr. Southey refers of lawful ways and means is expressed, in the first place, not in reference to the inquiry, but the punishment, and runs thus.

"And further we do give full power to you, &c. &c. &c. to hear and determine concerning the premises, and to order, correct, reform, and punish all persons dwelling in places exempt or not exempt, that wilfully and obstinately absent from church, or divine service established by law, by the censures of the church, or any other lawful ways and means, by the Act of Uniformity, or any other laws ecclesiastical of this realm limited and appointed."

The second limitation is in the clause on incests, adulteries, fornications, &c. and runs thus.

"And we do further empower you, &c. to punish all incests, adulteries, fornications, outrages, misbehaviour, and disorders in marriage, and all grievous offences punishable by the ecclesiastical laws, according to the tenor of the laws in that behalf, and according to your wisdoms, consciences, and discretion, commanding any three of you, to devise all such lawful ways and means for the searching out the premises as by you shall be thought necessary."

Our readers may now judge of Mr. Southey's accuracy, and of Neal's dishonesty. The fact is, Neal has given the whole document, and has therefore enabled NEW SERIES, No. 2.

his reader to judge for himself, and has suppressed nothing. Mr. S. in his zeal to defend this High Commission Court, has overlooked the obvious fact, that the limitation of lawful ways and means is

not used in reference to the means of inquiry into heresy, &c. but is used in the clause empowering the judges to punish. But what is the world to think of a historian who can thus attempt a palliation of that oppressive and cruel Commission, which all liberal-minded Englishmen have been taught from their birth to execrate, and of which the Lord Treasurer Burleigh wrote to the Archbishop, its head, in the following terms. "I think the Inquisition of Spain used not so many questions to comprehend and entrap their priests." "This kind of proceeding is too much savouring of the Romish Inquisition, and is a device rather to seek for offenders than reform "I have willed any;" and adds, the ministers not to answer these articles, except their consciences may suffer them."

But we have done with Mr. Southey. He has attempted to apologize for every species of oppression, and to vindicate the character of the most cruel and arbitrary of prelates. He shows himself the advocate of intolerance, and the apologist of persecutors, and we should hope that none but such will be misled by his statements, or induced to applaud his labours. He has endeavoured indeed to load the character of the puritans and nonconformists with odium; but we would remind him that there stands at the head of them a name, which is, and will be, the glory of the English nation and of English poetry, and from the study of whose princi ples, and character, and genius, though he was no laureate, Mr. S. has yet much to learn. Surely the cause which a Milton espoused,

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and that with all his heart, was neither unworthy a Christian, a gentleman, or a scholar, and is sustained by too formidable a phalanx of venerated names, to be endangered from the quarter which has now attacked it.

Mr. Butler's Book of the Roman Catholic Church is an attempt to vindicate the claims of that church; and, as far as the argument is concerned, is built upon the assumption that miracles are a seal of the authority of the Romish Church. Mr. B. contends that it is impossible for Protestants to deny the existence of miracles after the apostolic age, without invalidating the testimony of the writers, upon whom depends the authenticity of our own Scriptures, and that no period has ever been agreed upon by Protestants at which miracles in their opinion ceased. Upon this ground he endeavours to set up the claim of the Church of Rome to a regular descent of miraculous power from the apostolic age. The total absurdity of such a pretension we need not expose

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Miracles," St. Paul says, are á sign to them that are without" the church; but the Church of Rome having always kept them within, must not wonder if her adversaries still remain in unbelief. Let their church prove to unbelievers that she possesses such a power as Paul, when he spake with tongues, or Peter and James, when they healed the lame man at the beautiful gate of the temple, and the controversy would soon cease. As it regards the points in which Mr. Butler is at issue with Mr. Southey, we can only say, that the one of course follows the Popish historians, the other the Protestant. The one swallows all the narrations of the legendary histories, lives of saints, &c. &c. without assuming to himself a right of discrimination; the other rejects what is obvious fable, and accepts only what is in

accordance with reason, and the concurrent voice of fact.

As it regards any vindication of the Creed of the Romish Church, Mr. Butler has utterly failed. Scripture is out of the question with him-it is a weapon he dares not wield; and therefore with us all his reasoning falls to the ground, and in short we are completely at issue with him on first principles, on á final appeal, and on the interpretation of Scripture; and, therefore, we beg leave to say, this whole attempted vindication of Roman Catholic theology is founded on false ground. We admit the final authority of Scripture, but can see none in popes or councils. In some few minute particulars Mr. Butler has corrected the statements of Mr. Southey, but we can assure him, that all his palliations of the errors, and explanations of the cruelties of the Papal Church are like attempts to prove that night is day, and day night. Mr. Butler has written a book descriptive rather of his own ideas of the Romish religion, than a true delineation of the existing thing. Mr. Butler's style of controversy is however pleasing and commendable, and is more properly illustrative of the man than of the system. But the obvious answer to his whole book is this-You have described in deed what your religion might be what its documents are, and what the best men in it could wish it to be-not what it is, either in practice, or history, or its living administrators; and as such we have only to say, Mr. Butler may be a very good Christian, and we gladly acknowledge him a very gentlemanly writer, but his church is at issue in almost every point with Him that formed human nature, and gave to fallen man the Scriptures of eternal truth as his only infallible guide to happiness, virtue, and heaven.