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more against them?"-Necessity of Reformation, &c., first published in 1686.

The &c., near the beginning of this extract, must be understood to comprehend the Legatine, and other letters, which we honestly consider as the most important and interesting portion of the materials used in the present history. And so the writer, or redacteur, as he may be called, seems to think himself. There is indeed a passage to this very point, so accordant with our own views, that we feel induced to copy it.

"All this," the minute preparations for the opening of the council, as conveyed in a letter "all this was highly proper to be written : and the fact of the case invites the reflection, that history is studied in a series of letters containing it, far differently, and in some respects more advantageously, than in a formal narrative, written in times posterior to the events recorded: although that method likewise has its advantages. It is exceedingly difficult, and indeed, perfectly to do so, impossible, to place ourselves in any point of time, where what is now past and certain, was future and uncertain; when what we now calmly read as matters of history, were objects of fears and wishes of every intensity, and of plans and conjectures covered with impenetrable obscurity; except so far as the probabilities from the general connexion of cause and effect-the great guide of human duty, where no positive command of God is known-may cast a feeble ray into the region of darkness. This state of things and feelings is most perfectly realized by letters of the parties concerned; and inferences may arise from the scenes and exhibitions which they present, of some value to the reader, both in rectifying his judgment of others, and in regulating his own conduct." P. 33.

We may be allowed to add, that the letters exhibited in the volume before us, not only issued from individuals of the highest authority, and intimately acquainted with the acts and views of which they had the direction, but are of a style and character to create confidence. They are written apparently with the greatest freedom, without either disguise or concealment, as strictly business communications, between parties who were well acquainted with each other, and with whom it would have been pure affectation to write in phrases. There are indeed several letters, which, in part or whole, are written in cypher; and these generally contain matters of delicacy, but chiefly, if we are not mistaken, relating to personal disagreements of the principal members-we are thinking of that between two of the legates, during the last assembly of the council, dexterously composed by Visconti-but even these do not depart from the open style of the rest. The precaution was only against strangers. All appears to have been bosom confidence and affection among themselves; and the missives which continued to

"Speed the soft intercourse from Trent to Rome," and from Rome to Trent, not without occasionally "wafting a

sigh," bear all the honest marks of proceeding from heads and hearts intimately acquainted, and cordially sympathizing with each other. It may not improbably be a consequence of this peculiarity, that no preceding history of the council, and indeed few other histories of any kind, so completely introduce the reader behind the scenes of the sacred drama, and let him into the motives and designs of the principal actors, whether on the stage or at a distance.

We might make some additional remarks on the events of the second convention of the great assemblage at Trent; and express our opinion, that Mr. Mendham might have taken for his guide, in defect of the more extended manuscripts, the Acts of Nicholas Psaulme, bishop of Verdun, which in this country are not much more familiarly known than a manuscript, and were first brought to light by C. L. Hugo, in his Accessiones, &c. Conc. Trid. Illustr. Franc. 1744. The present writer is, we see, acquainted with the work. Its contents are found dispersed in Le Plat. But we hasten to some observations on the final and most important meeting of the council.

And here the materials, particularly the historic portion, are the most copious and valuable. Servantio's Diary appears indeed to be, with some exceptions, only a meagre register of events. But the Acta of Paleotto, from the constancy with which he is copied, the character of the contents exhibited, and the testimony of the present writer, appears entitled to the distinction of an eloquent as well as faithful historian. The services of this writer begin at p. 171 of the " Memoirs." From his own account of himself it appears that he was one of the twelve auditors of the Rota, and was sent to the council by Pius IV. With the advantages which his situation allowed him, he determined to compose a history of the transactions which he witnessed, and in which, as the history itself testifies, he bore a conspicuous part, especially towards the termination of the council. His performance, when completed, was subjected to the inspection of the gravest of the fathers, who, he adds, advised him to make it public. This, however, he modestly refers to the judgment of his superiors, to whom, with the permission of the supreme pontiff, it belongs to determine, whether such a measure would be for the benefit of the holy church. "They have not so thought," adds Mr. M., "nor was it likely, from the honesty of the contents, that they ever would." The auditor is aware of the objections which might be made, founded on some of his rather awful disclosures of the violent contentions among the fathers: but he satisfies himself that every apprehension on that score was groundless; and that the facts would really tell to the honour of the liberty of speech allowed in the council. He is, however, an impassioned admirer of the council, and concludes his procmium with a good round period in its praise.

We must refrain from embarking upon the wide and rough sea of the intrigues, jealousies, bigotry, and turbulence which certainly disgrace the terminating portion of the Council of Trent; and remit our readers-who, if they are not acquainted with them, ought-to the pages of the work in which we believe them to be faithfully extracted and exhibited. We will content ourselves with observing, that the representations, unflattering as they certainly appear, are not discharged from the quills of heretics, dipped in the gall of hatred against those, who, if they obtained any other than hatred, earned it not by their tender mercies. They proceed voluntarily from individuals who were true sons of the Roman church, and who would have bled themselves, or rather made others bleed, in proof of their devotedness to her cause. But case-hardened as such persons are, when the influence of their religion acts freely and directly upon them, there are times when they are off their guard;-times, when they feel themselves communicating only with their friends, and the thought never intrudes of their having to encounter other witnesses and judges;-times, when a strong and present passion carries them onward in its irresistible and absorbing torrent; and times, when common natural sense and feeling, the wreck which the corruption of the human nature has yet left, to secure the world from the extremity of disorder and misery, when these leavings of poor debased humanity rise against the dictates of a depraved faith, and persecuted innocence finds an occasional refuge from abused christianity in the pittance of charity which sin has left undestroyed in the heart of man. The turgid panegyric of Campian on the Council of Trent is notorious, and is found repeated in the pages which we have been examining. Living near the time, and when the rays of truth were carefully restrained from reaching such a distance as England, it is very possible that this papal martyr, and fanatical traitor, may have really believed his own fiction. But how an acute modern, the late C. Butler, Esq., whose encomium upon the council likewise illuminates Mr. M.'s pages, could himself be deceived on the subject, or how, by some reserve or ambiguity, he could attempt to produce the belief in others which he did not feel himself, is among those phenomena which we do not like, without necessity, to account for. Certain it is, that the man who is not disabused of such a sentiment by the free and voluntary statements of the very competent-there could not be more competent-witnesses brought into court in the Memoirs before us, proves himself well entitled to a searchwarrant for his wits in the moon.

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The train of observation which facts have obliged us to adopt, does not, it is true, speak much for the wisdom of the council. We cannot help that. We must take the truth as it is. If a portion of our fellow-creatures will believe and consequently

act unwisely as others, if not themselves, will believe and act wickedly-we are not to be prohibited the right of seeing, exposing, and to the best of our power demolishing, both the folly and the vice. Folly itself, and by itself, is a grievous evil. The follies of men constitute or produce some of the gravest and most calamitous events of human history. It is not therefore enough to laugh at them; it is both sin and inhumanity so to do. And therefore, although the doctrines of Trent be the fables of children, grown as well as young, yet, where they prevail, they are productive of substantial and serious injury; and none but the heartless atheist, or irreligionist of any cast, will regard them with mirth or indifference. During our short residence on earth we are on our trial for eternity; and woe to him who, either for himself or others, will say, and act accordingly, that life and its events are a jest.

In our review of the Memoirs we must not omit the Supplement. This contains some corrections, but more additions; all of which appear to be both remote from general knowledge, and important. The confirmation of the genuine papal origin and character of the Centum Gravamina from Zuingle, Claude d'Espense, and Cornelius Agrippa; the protestation of our King Henry VIII. against the council on its first proposal; the account of Cardinal Quignon's Reformed Breviary; the contents of Paul III.'s Bulla Reformationis, lately discovered and published by H. N. Clausen of Copenhagen; the account of the condemnation by certain fathers in the council, of the practice which prevailed among Romanists, of frequenting the Anglican service in the time of Queen Elizabeth; the true cause of the refusal of Pius VII. to declare war against England; together with several other articles of not common information, especially those derived from the Anecdota ad Hist. Conc. Trid. pertinentia, published from manuscripts in the Royal Library of the University of Göttingen, by G. Jac. Planck, in twenty-four numbers, from 1791 to 1815, and hardly known in this country-these are articles, which, in our opinion, could not be withheld from those who take an interest in the Council of Trent, or in the papal controversy, which has not yet come to its height, without loss.

There is a point to which we would awaken the attention of protestant scholars in ecclesiastical affairs. Fra. P. Sarpi's history, as translated by Sir Nathaniel Brent, is not an English form of the history worthy of the present age. All readers who understand French, betake themselves to Courayer's translation; and it deserves all their preference. It is excellent, and does honour to French ecclesiastical literature in every respect. Why should not an English translation be undertaken on the same plan, and with all the assistances which the Frenchman has supplied ready to hand? The marginal authorities, the notes, the contents of

the chapters, are executed with masterly ability. Let an English translator, acquainted with the Italian original, and availing himself to the full of all Courayer's contributions, (without servilely copying him, for he is sometimes redundant,) as well as of the new materials which he will find in ample measure in the Memoirs which have passed our review, issue proposals to the purpose marked out,-and we doubt not, that a Protestant public will do their duty.

Before we dismiss the present work, we cannot forbear some notice of the plates which accompany it. The fac-similes of the signatures to the authenticated copies of the canons and decrees, with some others of eminent persons connected with the council, possess undoubtedly a considerable interest with those who value every memorial of important events as associated with Christianity. But the fac-simile, as far as an outline executed with eminent skill can convey it, of an engraving taken from a well-finished painting of the council in session, in the church of Santa Maria Maggiore, in Trent-the church where the congregations were held, and now in a state of comparative decay,is an ornament and acquisition to the work, which the man of taste, as well as the student in theology, will know how to appreciate. The original is noticed by Mr. Inglis in his "Travels in the Tyrol," as Mr. M. has observed, p. 17. There is a plate, as we understand, of very inferior execution and size, and yet possessing rude merit, exhibiting the fathers assembled in their congregations in the church just mentioned: the sessions were held in the cathedral dedicated to St. Vigilio. A theologian is represented in a rostrum delivering his opinion; and two inscriptions, the one in Latin and the other in an Italian translation, state the fact, that the public were admitted to the audience of the theologians, but were excluded when the bishops spake. The print is plainly cotemporary.

ART. VI.-An Exposition of the Thirty-nine Articles of the Church of England. By GILBERT, Bishop of Sarum. Revised and corrected, with copious Notes and additional References, by the Rev. J. R. PAGE, M. A. London: Scott, Webster, and Geary, Charterhouse-square. 1837.

IT is now some years since Archbishop Magee-alluding to Romanism on one hand and to dissent on the other--described the church of England as assailed by a church without a religion and a religion without a church. Had that penetrating and lynx-eyed prelate only lived a few years longer, it would have been his lot, as it has been ours, to witness a solemn league and covenant entered into between these parties,-for extremes will often meet in the things of religion and politics, as in other

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