the Jesuit Alonso de Andrade in the middle of the seventeenth century, and frequently reprinted, entitled the " Itinerary to Heaven?"* or with his "Patronage of Our Lady," which in some editions is printed with it? They are filled with fables, some of them as absurd and grotesque as others are revolting for their grossness and monstrosity. I am sure, were you to peruse these treatises, you would unequivocally acknowledge that there are more lies than pages in them; and that when the author collected them from other fablers and compilers of fables, he could not possibly have believed them himself. Anile credulity is not the failing of a Jesuit, especially of one who was allowed to appear as an author, and chosen to bear a part in the business of his order and of the world. these works were licensed as containing "nothing contrary to the opinion of the Church, but being wholly in support of its doctrines, and therefore well worthy to be published for the general good." Father Andrade held the high office of " Calificador to the Supreme

Yet

* Itinerario Historial, que debe guardar el Hombre para caminar al Cielo, &c.-Lisbon, 1687.

† Patrocinio de N. Señora. Como es Patrona Universal del Genero Humano la Beatissima Virgen Maria, Madre de Dios y Señora Nuestra.

T

Council of the Holy and General Inquisition," which in his days was in full activity; and any person who should have expressed a disbelief of the thousand and one tales in these edifying works, would have fallen under the cognizance of that tribunal, and his offence have been qualified before it as heresy.

No, Sir: the number and the perpetual succession of fables with which your books are filled, can only be explained by the fact that a system of imposture has been carried on by the Romish Church. Those miracles, which you hear of with a sigh, were invented with a smile,...or they were actually performed with a grave face, and that sort of contentment at heart which a slight-of-hand-man feels when his room has been well filled, and his exhibition has gone off to the satisfaction of the company. Your clergy have dealt in them. "They have plowed wickedness; they have reaped iniquity; they have eaten the fruit of lies."*

In what has thus been written for the purpose of substantiating a charge of imposture and wickedness upon the Romish Church, I have been compelled to repeat expressions which you have thought proper sometimes to

*Hosea, x. 13.

protest against, and sometimes to deprecate. I entreat you, Sir, do not impute this to want of temper, or to any personal disrespect... but to a habit of expressing in the readiest words what is distinctly perceived and strongly felt,.. to a deep sense of the importance of the subject,..and to the necessity which this great argument must always impose upon one who in full sincerity undertakes it. With your

statements I must deal as they deserve, and with your reasoning also; but even when I come to those assertions which, were it possible for you to prove them, would affect me as a man of intregrity even more than in my literary character, I will not forget the terms on which we have heretofore met, the pleasure which I have experienced in your society and at your table, and the courtesies which have passed between us... It is only when actually engaged in this vindication that I can regard you as an adversary in the intervals, when that occupation is suspended, I am not sensible of any adversarious feeling; nothing remains but pleasant recollections. Were my temper irritable, (which all who know me will bear witness it is not,) I would on this occasion endeavour to control it. Even when insulted by such assailants as Dr. Milner, I might say of them

with Scaliger, Ego ejusmodi ingenia magis odi quam curo," if I cared for them enough to hate them,...if scorn did not supply the place of indignation. But in you, Sir, I have at least a courteous antagonist: when any thing unfair or unworthy appears in your argument, I attribute it to the weakness of a cause for which nothing better can be advanced; and when any thing occurs to which a harsher epithet might be applied, I impute it to the persons upon whose authority and good faith you have not more implicitly than imprudently relied. Bear you, Sir, with the plainness of an honest straightforward style, which expresses all that it means, as I on my part am willing to forgive injurious misrepresentations, and insinuations which mean more than they express! There will then be no breach of charity between us : and when we retire from the contest it will be with feelings of mutual good will.

277

LETTER VII.

CHARGES AGAINST THE MONKS OF WITHHOLDING

KNOWLEDGE, AND OF A DISPOSITION

TO IMMODERATE SEVERITY."

WHEN I was composing Madoc, Sir, St. Dunstan served as a model for the Priest of Mexitli; and, as a proof that I had caught the general likeness, the resemblance was perceived and noticed in a reviewal of that poem. The view which I have taken of his character is that in which every Protestant writer has beheld it, from the days of Archbishop Parker. But you tell us that till the Reformation this Saint was always considered as an ornament to his religion and his country; and you express your wonder that such a change of opinion should then have taken place without the discovery of a single new fact that could justify it... Suppose, Sir, the Turks were to be converted, and become a Christian people; would it surprize you if they were then to consider

*Pages 57-68.