MR. DALLAS's statement, therefore, that PRYNNE was "# "factious agent" (p. 35), " a thorough-paced puritan," and "a Libeller" (p. 36), will not suffice to overthrow his testimony. There is nothing easier than to call names; and the imputation of faction is as old as the age of the Apostles, when, the chief of that chosen band was called " a pestilent "fellow," a "mover of sedition, and the ringleader of a sect" (Acts, xxiv, 5).

MR. DALLAS's assertion, that PRYNNE attacked THE CHURCH, is not correct, unless he means the Church of ROME: he certainly attacked those Members of the Church of England, who (like ARCHBISHOP LAUD, BISHOP MONTAGUE, and HEYLIN), appeared determined to bring in Popery, against the wishes of the People of England; and who shewed its Professors and Ministers such honour and patronage, as appeared to PRYNNE and others, to be inconsistent with the safety and existence of the Church of England.

So far was PRYNNE from giving any countenance to the excesses of the Parliament or the Army, that he invariably opposed the irregularities of both, to the utmost of his power, both by his public conduct, and his printed works; and he also attacked the usurpation of CROMWELL with so much vigour, that he was actually imprisoned by that military Demagogue: so far also was PRYNNE from displaying any hostility to Monarchy or regular government, as such, that he was eminently instrumental in restoring CHARLES II. to the Throne, and gave his most strenuous support to the legal and established government, which was effected by the Restoration of the lawful Monarch.

MR. DALLAS next attempts (p. 35) to discredit the testimony of DE THOU

This great Historian enjoyed the confidence of HENRY III. of France, by whom he was employed in Normandy, Picardy, Germany, and Venice; his knowledge and integrity recommended him to his Successor HENRY IV. who made him his Privy Counsellor, and relied on him in the most important

negotiations. He placed him at the head of the Royal Library; an office (say the French Biographers) worthy of his erudition. The same King appointed him one of his Commissioners, on the part of the Catholics, in the celebrated Conference at Fontainebleau, during the Regency of Mary de Medicis. This distinguished character was one of the Directors General of Finance; he was deputed to the conference of Loudun, and employd in other affairs of the greatest consequence, in all of which it was difficult to decide whether his honesty, or his talents were most conspicuous. His intimate acquaintance with the best classical authors, his profound re searches, and his extensive travels, his knowledge of the manners, the customs, and the geography of various countries, eminently qualified him for that stupendous work, the History of his own Time (from 1545 to 1607); a work which involves all the great interests of policy, war, and letters, during a most interesting period. The impartiality and intelligence which are displayed in this performance, have been the theme of general admiration: his reflections are elevated, and yet judicious; and although his details are sometimes elaborate and diffuse, the eloquence with which they are relieved may be permitted to atone for this defect. DE THOU, however, although himself a Catholic, was too enlightened, not to observe the crooked and secular policy of the Church of Rome, and too honest to suppress the result of his observations. He speaks, therefore, with freedom, of worldly-minded Popes, of a licentious Clergy (whether Jesuits or not), and of the treacherous House of Guise; and he evinces considerable liberality and candour towards Protestants. "Hinc illæ lacrymæ !"

Such a line of conduct could not fail to attract many foes.. He was accused of heterodoxy by some, and of heresy by others: this excited no surprise in his own mind, and it is thus that he refutes the imputations which had arisen, in a Letter to the President Jeannin. "I call God to witness": (says he)," that I have only had his glory, and the public "good, in view, in having composed my History with the most

"correctness.

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"scrupulous and uncorrupted fidelity of which I was capable, "without suffering myself to be influenced by friendship or ❝by hatred. I admit that many have the advantage of me "in a more agreeable style, in a superior mode of narration, "and in the depth of their reflections and maxims; but I will yield to no Historian who has preceded me, in fidelity and I could easily foresee that I should draw upon myself the hatred of many persons, and the event has "shewn that I was not mistaken. Scarcely had the first part "of my History appeared in 1604, than I experienced the "animosity of many, who, by artifice and calumny, excited 66 some Courtiers against me, who (as you know) are not "themselves the best judges of subjects of this kind. They "carried the matter to ROME, where, after having condemned me, they easily brought about the condemnation of a work "(by means of prejudiced Censors) of which they had not 66 perused one third*.”

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Perhaps, however, MR. DALLAS may object to DE THOU'S account of himself. Let him hear then what the great LORD MANSFIELD said of him and his History, in his celebrated speech in the House of Lords, in the cause of The Chamber

* See Dictionnaire Historique, Article DE THOU.-By the Bull In cana Domini, which no Pope has as yet retracted, all persons who should read any Book composed by Heretics, were excommunicated. Father Paul mentioning the first Index of prohibited Books which was published at Rome, in 1559, says, among other things, that, under pretext of Religion, the Pope in this, consigned to excommunication the authors of all works, in which the authority of Princes and Magistrates was supported against the usurpation of Ecclesiastics: besides which, the Romish Inquisitors prohibited, in the mass, all books printed by sixty-two printers who were named, which works they denounced, without any regard to their contents; adding further a general prohibition to read any book issuing from the press of any printer, who but once in his life had printed any thing produced by an Heretic.-By this means (says the Historian) nothing was left to read, and never was a better secret discovered to paralyze and corrupt men by Religion.-See History of the Council of Trent, book vi.

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lain of London against Evans: he there speaks of him as "that great man, who, though a Papist, had dared to advance "so many admirable things in the dedication of his History "to Henry IV. a History which" (says Lord Mansfield) “ I "NEVER READ WITHOUT RAPTURE."

It was DE THOU whom the great and learned GROTIUS esteemed above all others, and with whom he preserved a friendship and maintained a correspondence, till the hour of his death.

It is at this character, that MR. DALLAS "first casts a "stone !"

To furnish any further eulogiums on DE THOU would be to write a volume. Let his own works praise him. Let the general esteem in which the world has agreed to hold them (with the exception only of certain partisans, who cannot bear the truth) suffice to wipe out the aspersions which have been cast upon him by the author of the Letters in THE PILOT NEWSPAPER, and the Popish Journal, which MR. DALLAS has thought proper to make his own. Finally, let the unsucessful efforts of the Court of Rome, to stifle the evidence collected by DE THOU, and a multitude of other Historians, while they afford a strong argument in favor of those writers, serve to establish more fully the narrow and perverted policy of suppressing facts, because they do not tend to the credit of the Romish Church; a policy which would sacrifice truth itself to the interests of a particular system, and would keep the whole world in darkness, rather than that the delinquencies of Popery, and her twin sister Jesuitism, should be exposed.

MR. DALLAS next ventures on a little bush-fighting with the elaborate and faithful History of RAPIN; not daring, as it should seem, to hazard an attack in front.

He complains, " that he finds in the pages of RAPIN, the "names of Jesuit and Catholic indiscriminately used as ac"cused of plots:" and, whom has MR. DALLAS to censure for this? Certainly not the Historian, but those faithful Bre

thren, who, true to each other, and to their cause, were thus indiscriminately engaged in plots, of which RAPIN records the failure. If the names of Jesuits and Catholics are indiscriminately found in the pages of RAPIN, what are we to infer from this, but that, if the same persons are found again in this Protestant nation, they will be indiscriminately engaged in the same pious work?

MR. DALLAS, however, finds that "the Jesuits confuted "the accusations brought against them by the most persuasive simplicity of their protestations of innocence ;" and blames "a writer of 1815 for citing the pretended plots, in the days of "Elizabeth, and of the Stuarts."

If protestations of innocence were to be admitted as proofs of innocence, MR. DALLAS might contend with greater probability, that the plots of the Jesuits through the five reigns of Elizabeth, Charles I. and II. and James I. and II. were only PRETENDED. Let us, however, examine this assertion.

The greater part of the offenders in the above instances were charged with having designed the destruction of the lawful Sovereigns of the land. In addition, therefore, to the ordinary crime of murder, the treason which it involved against the highest authorities, and a sense of the distraction and uproar which might be reasonably expected to ensue, rendered such a species of crime peculiarly detestable to the people of England. Now, it has ever been found that most of those who rank in the worst class of offenders declare their innocence to the last, especially in cases where the offence is not deposed to by an eye-witness of the fact, and frequently where it is, it being attempted, in the latter case, to affect the credit of such witness, as perjured or suborned. It has often been found that the dread of general odium and indignation is the last surviving principle in the human breast: it is dearer than life itself; and many who have not feared to die, have, in all ages, shrunk from the complete forfeiture of character which a confession of their crime would involve. They could dare