to defend and maintain their own privileges-these, by the tenor of the bill, are simple enough, and capable of being effectually defended by the general council; and should the additional protection they desire be conceded, enough has been said above to show, that the enforcement of a protective provision in the bill could not be safely left in their hands. If it be the mere love of power and consequence, the bill overturns all obstructions in the way of the ambitious, who may desire promotion to station and influence-all obstacles being removed which have hitherto prevented men of talent and education from advancing themselves to the highest position in the profession, that of fellows of the Royal Colleges. Besides, a new medical corporation could not be formed but upon the ruins of those which already exist, and more especially of the College of Surgeons, which could not possibly continue to flourish along with a distinct College of Licentiates in Medicine and Surgery. We must also confess, that the spirit in which Sir James Graham's bill has been received by the general practitioners of England, does not diminish the difficulties in the way of incorporating them into a distinct institution.

Sir James Graham's bill does not include the chemists and druggists. This branch of the profession stands as much in need of legislative interference as any other. But it was judicious not to complicate the question of Medical Reform with any additional elements. Should the present bill pass, it will be a comparatively easy matter to frame a supplementary one for regulating the practice of pharmacy.

It is rather surprising that, among the objections brought against the bill, no importance seems to have been attached to the great extent and summary powers entrusted to the Council of Health. Its powers are unequivocally such as will require to be exercised with great prudence and forbearance, especially in the first efforts for reducing matters to a system. It appears impossible, however, to avoid entrusting great discretionary power somewhere; and we repeat that the constitution of the body intended to possess it, seems to have been carefully and dispassionately considered. And all which seems necessary for security is, that its proceedings be subjected to the control of annual reports to Parliament.

On the whole, then, we feel convinced that Sir James Graham has succeeded in bringing forward a well-conceived measure, which, with a few alterations in regard to some comparatively unimportant details, ought to satisfy all who hold reasonable. views as to medical legislation; that this opinion will be pre

sently adopted by many of his opponents, who, for the time, had allowed the passions of a few to mislead them; and that the thanks of the medical profession, as well as the country at large, are due to him for the address and success with which he has reconciled conflicting interests, and harmonized materials not a little discordant.

No. CLXIV. will be published in April.

Edinburgh: Printed by Ballantyne and Hughes, Paul's Work.

THE

EDINBURGH REVIEW,

APRIL, 1845.

No. CLXIV.

ART. I.Gregoire VII.; St François d'Assize, St Thomas D'Aquin. Par. E. J. Delécluze. Two Volumes. 8vo. Paris: 1844.

HE

E had been a shrewd, if not a very reverent observer of human life, who bowed to the fallen statue of Jupiter, by way of bespeaking the favour of the god in the event of his again being lifted on his pedestal. Hildebrand, the very impersonation of Papal arrogance and of spiritual despotism, (such had long been his historical character,) is once more raised up for the homage of the faithful. Dr Arnold vindicates his memory. M. Guizot hails him as the Czar Peter of the Church. Mr Voight, a professor at Halle, celebrates him as the foremost and the most faultless of heroes. Mr Bowden, an Oxford Catholic, reproduces the substance of Mr Voight's eulogy, though without the fire which warms, or the light which irradiates, the pages of his guide. M. Delécluze, and the Bibliothèque Universelle de Genève, are elevated by the theme into the region where rhetoric and poetry are conterminous; while M. l'Abbé Jager absolutely shouts with exultation, to witness the subsidence, at the voice of Protestants, of those mists which had so long obscured the glory of him, by whom the pontifical tiara was exalted far above the crowns of every earthly potentate. Wholly inadequate as are our necessary limits to the completion of such an enquiry, we would fain explore the grounds of this revived

worship, and judge how far it may be reasonable to join in offering incense at the shrine of this reinstated Jupiter Ecclesiasticus.

Except in the annals of Eastern despotisms, no parallel can be found for the disasters of the Papacy during the century and a half which followed the extinction of the Carlovingian dynasty. Of the twenty-four Popes who during that period ascended the apostolic throne, two were murdered, five were driven into exile, four were deposed, and three resigned their hazardous dignity. Some of these Vicars of Christ were raised to that awful preeminence by arms, and some by money. Two received it from the hands of princely courtesans. One was self-appointed. A well-filled purse purchased one papal abdication; the promise of a fair bride another. One of those holy fathers pillaged the treasury, fled with the spoil, returned to Romé, ejected his substitute; and mutilated him in a manner too revolting for description. In one page of this dismal history, we read of the disinterred corpse of a former Pope brought before his successor to receive a retrospective sentence of deposition; and in the next we find the judge himself undergoing the same posthumous condemnation, though without the same filthy ceremonial. Of these heirs of St Peter, one entered on his infallibility in his eighteenth year, and one before he had seen his twelfth summer. One again took to himself a coadjutor, that he might command in person such legions as Rome then sent into the field. Another, Judas like, agreed for certain pieces of silver to recognise the Patriarch of Constantinople as universal bishop. All sacred things had become venal. Crime and debauchery held revel in the Vatican ; while the afflicted Church, wedded at once to three husbands, (such was the language of the times,) witnessed the celebration of as many rival masses in the metropolis of Christendon. To say that the gates of hell had prevailed against the seat and centre of Catholicism, would be to defy the Inquisition. But Baronius himself might be cited to prove that they had rolled back on their infernal hinges, that thence might go forth malignant spirits, commissioned to empty on her devoted head the vials of bitterness and wrath.

How, from this hotbed of corruption, the seeds of a new and prolific life derived their vegetative power, and how, in an age in which the Papacy was surrendered to the scorn and hatred of mankind, the independence of the Holy See on the imperial crown became first a practical truth, and then a hallowed theory, are problems over which we may not now linger. Suffice it to say, that in the middle of the eleventh century, Europe once more looked to Rome as the pillar and the ground of the truth; while Rome herself looked forth on a long chain of stately

monasteries, rising like distant bulwarks of her power in every land which owned her spiritual rule.

Of these, Clugni was the foremost in numbers, wealth, and piety; and at Clugni, towards the end of the year 1048, a priest, arrayed in all the splendour, and attended by the retinue of a Pontiff elect, demanded both the hospitality and the homage of the monks. His name was Bruno. His office, that of the Bishop of Toul. But at the nomination of the Emperor Henry the Third, and in a German synod, he had recently been elected to the vacant Papacy, and was now on his way to Rome, to take possession of the Chair of Peter. The Prior of the house was distinguished above all his brethren by the holiness of his life, the severity of his self-discipline, and by that ardent zeal to obey which indicates the desire and the ability to command. He was then in the prime of manhood, and his countenance (if his extant portraits may be trusted) announced Hildebrand as one of those who are born to direct and subjugate the wills of ordinary men. Such a conquest he achieved over him on whose brows the triple crown was then impending. An election made beyond the precincts of the Holy City, and at the bidding of a secular power, was regarded by the austere monk as a profane title to the seat once occupied by the Prince of the Apostles. At his instance, Bruno laid aside the vestments, the insignia, and the titles of the pontificate; and, pursuing his way in the humble garb of a pilgrim to the tomb of Peter, entered Rome with bare feet, and a lowly aspect, and with no attendant (or none discernible by human sense) except the adviser of this politic self-abasement. To Bruno himself indeed was revealed the presence of an angelic choir, who chanted in celestial harmonies the return of peace to the long-afflicted people of Christ. Acclamations less seraphic, but of less doubtful reality, from the Roman clergy and populace, rewarded this acknowledgment of their electoral privileges, and conferred on Leo the Ninth (as he was thenceforth designated) a new, and, as he judged, a better title to the supreme government of the Church. The reward of this service was prompt and munificent. Hildebrand was raised to the rank of a Cardinal, and received the offices of sub-deacon of Rome, and superintendent of the church and convent of St Paul.

Not less assiduous to soothe, than they had been daring to provoke, the resentment of the Emperor, the Pope became once more a courtier and a pilgrim, while the Cardinal remained in Rome to govern the city and the church. Thrice Bruno visited the German court, bringing with him papal benedictions to Henry, and papal censures on Henry's rebellious vassals. So grateful and so effective was the aid thus rendered to the mon