mark, or to require any vindication. The attempt of MR. DALLAS to depreciate THE PROVINCIAL LETTERS, or to avoid their force by calling them a Satire, is a sophism which will not avail the Apologist of the Jesuits: it is true, that PASCAL has, in this inimitable work, availed himself of the legitimate advantages which the talent of ridicule afforded him, "ridendo "dicere verum;" but the facts advanced by him throughout the work are incontestable, and the Extracts from the writings of the Jesuits, with which it is filled, have never yet been doubted, or denied to be the production of the men whom he exposes and confutes: all the Jesuits cited by Pascal were considered by their own Order as oracles, and the whole Society always acted so systematically as a body, that the doctrines of the one may be imputed to the rest more fairly than in any other class of men. It is upon the Extracts from the Works of the Jesuits that the logical reasoning and brilliant wit of this admirable work are founded; a work, which at once enlightened the world and immortalized its author. Before, therefore, the credit and authority of THE PROVINCIAL LETTERS can be shaken, the Friends of the Jesuits must succeed in proving that the large and ample quotations from their writings, upon which the whole reasoning of THE PRO

"rally bestowed upon them. It became, in some measure, a point of "honour with them to write vigorously against the Protestants, in "order to give striking proof that they were as good Catholics as their "adversaries. At the same time, they wrote at least as vigorously "against the Jesuits, and acquitted themselves in this essential office,

con amore, with still more eloquence than in the other. As the Je"suits had entered the lists of science and genius with the Protestants; "their adversaries the Jansenists aspired, in like manner, to shew "themselves superior to the Jesuits in those very respects in which the "Jesuits excelled. They composed grammars, books of education "and piety, treatises of logic, morality, history, erudition. The

names of Lancelot, Arnauld, Tillemont, Nicole, Pascal, Sully, &c. ❝ are immortal as the memory of the services which they rendered to "the sciences and to French literature.

"Without the Reformation there would have been no Jesuits; and " without the Jesuits no Jansenists or Port Royal."-See Villers's Essay on the Reformation, translated by Mill, p. 387.

VINCIAL LETTERS depends, are falsely ascribed to the Jesuits: until they do this, and, at the same time, blot out the admirable notes of NICOLE, they can no more destroy the character of THE PROVINCIAL LETTERS, than they can overthrow the HISTORY OF COUDRETTE, without first annihilating the concurrent History of two Centuries *.

MR. DALLAS, however, quotes VOLTAIRE (p. 14), to shew that "the extravagant notions of a few Spanish and "Flemish Jesuits were artfully ascribed by PASCAL to the "whole Society"-but the fact is, that PASCAL has selected specimens of Jesuitism from every nation where it was known, and the following History will shew that a French Jesuit and an English Jesuit were by no means more harmless than a Flemish or Spanish Jesuit; their vices having comparatively nothing to do with the nations from which they came, nor the countries where they "laboured in their vocation," but being the essential vices of the Order, without which it must have ceased to be the Order of Jesuits. MR. DALLAS next quotes VOLTAIRE (p. 14), to shew that so far from the Jesuits having formed a design to corrupt mankind, "no sect of Society ever ❝had, or can have, such a design”—an assertion which is best refuted by the nefarious attempts of the very sect to which

* The lines of LUCAN apply to the labours of PASCAL;

"Tot scelerum: Populo venia est erepta nocenti."

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VOLTAIRE himself admits that "the Provincial Letters may be "considered as a model of eloquence and humour. The best Come"dies of MOLIERE (says he) have not more wit than the first part of "them, and the sublimity of the latter part of them is equal to any "thing in BOSSUET"-and this passage from VOLTAIRE stands in immediate connexion with that which MR. DALLAS has quoted! Again, VOLTAIRE, speaking of PASCAL's work, says, Examples of all the "various species of eloquence are to be found in it: though it has now "been written above a hundred years, yet not a single word occurs in "it savouring of that vicissitude to which living languages are so sub"ject. BossUET being asked what work he would wish most to be "the author of, supposing his own performances set aside, replied, "THE PROVINCIAL LETTERS."

VOLTAIRE himself belonged, to corrupt mankind upon the largest scale which infidelity and profligacy ever attempted.

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In p. 14, the charge of fabrication and forgery on the part of the opponents of the Jesuits is pretty distinctly conveyed in the following terms:-" With such enemies as the "Jansenists, will it be thought extraordinary that a thousand "fabrications of those days, blackening the Jesuits, may be "referred to? With such enemies as in later years appeared against them, in the host of Philosophers and Jacobins, is "it wonderful that there should be modern forgeries ?" If this passage has any meaning, it can only imply that ancient authorities must be considered as fabrications, and modern ones as forgeries, when they happen to bear upon the Jesuits;and the passage in question affords a fine example of that species of logic which assumes a fact by interrogation, and proves it by implication.

It would be well if MR. DALLAS had been able to authenticate a single instance of either ancient or modern forgery: he only adduces one-namely the Comptes Rendus; which he has, however, entirely failed in establishing as a forgery, as will be hereafter shewn.

One word also, once for all, respecting "the Enemies of "the Jesuits"-With MR. DALLAS every opponent is only an opponent because he is an Enemy, and no Enemy is to be believed. The imputation of hostility, in order to the invalidation of evidence, is an old ruse-de-guerre of the Jesuits and their friends. When the Parliament of Thoulouse declared against the Jesuits, they appealed from their decision, al-. leging "que le dit Parlement porte de la haine aux Jesuites." It is impossible to conceive a more convenient and summary mode of disposing of evidence. If applied to the criminal Jurisprudence of the country, it would form a prisoner's standing Defence; for, no doubt, the Prosecutor is generally the enemy of the Prisoner, and therefore, upon the same principle, ought not to be heard against him; but how did the Prosecutor happen to become so? most probably from the

previous conduct of the Prisoner. How did it happen that such an excellent and exemplary Order of men as Mr. DalLAS represents the Jesuits to be, had the misfortune to make enemies of almost all the world, except from their own delinquencies? We see to what length the argument of permitting no enemies to be heard has carried MR. DALLAS, when he gravely rejects (page 12 of Preface) the concurrent testimony of "the University and Parliaments of France" for two hun dred years, upon no better plea than that they were enemies of the Order. He applies the same test in innumerable other instances: but it seems an expedient not much unlike that, to which a culprit once, resorted; who challenged all his Jury in turn, in the hope that, by objecting to the whole, he should escape a trial.

In p. 15 we have a testimony from the pen of M. LALLY TOLENDAL, to the influence of the Jesuits in keeping the passions "of the savage populace" within due bounds, and preserving subordination in the world; which is best refuted by a reference to their conduct in every nation, and especially in France, during the time of the League, as detailed at large in the following History: but as that remark is introductory to many others of the same class, and as MR. DALLAS's main argument throughout his work is, that the opponents of the Jesuits were Infidels, Philosophers, and Jacobins, and that if the Jesuits had never been suppressed, the French Revolution would never have happened, it may be as well to consider that argument in this place, once for all.

In order to shew that MR. DALLAS has not been misunderstood in supposing him to advance these propositions, it may be right to recapitulate the passages which record his

sentiments.

P. 12 of Preface" The imposing appearance which the " ingenious agents of Jacobinism had given to the hue and "cry raised against the Jesuits"-Page 15 of the work, "The "destruction of the Jesuits remotely encouraged the forma❝tion of sanguinary clubs by causing the withdrawing of all

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religious and prudent congregations in which the savage populace of the Fauxbourg St. Antoine were tamed by the "disciples of an Ignatius and a Xavier.”

P. 24. "The two principal authorities quoted by Robertson "were leaders on of the Jacobinical Philosophy and of the "French Revolution."

P. 25. "To men who have recovered from the stun of "Jacobinism, it is hardly necessary to say that the destruc❝tion of the Jesuits was of the first importance to the suc"cess of D'ALEMBERT and DIDEROT's philosophical reform "of human nature."

P. 28. The ingenious Atheists who were preparing "France for the age of reason, the liberty of Jacobinism, and "the murders of philosophy."

P. 32. "There long existed a conspiracy against a Society whose principles and energy awed infidelity and rebel"lion."

P. 95. “The late French pamphlets against the Jesuits "are the dying echoes of the Jansenists, Parliamentarians, "and Jacobins."

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P. 110. "A Society to whom it was doubtful whether religion or science were more indebted."

P. 111. "Why is the re-establishment of the Society de"manded? From a hope that they may counteract the evils "which the neglect of religious education has suffered to "spread over the world, and from a conviction that they were "put down by the disciples of a false philosophy combining "with the vilest of passions."

P. 120. "GANGANELLI defrauded the tiara, and helped "to prepare the French Revolution."

P. 129. "The growth of one generation sufficed to strip "the tiara of the veneration due to it*, and to threaten every

If this be not arguing like a Catholic, what is? Protestants know nothing of any ❝ veneration due" to the Pope. THEIR whole system is founded on the denial of his authority!