Index librorum quorundam decipientium, scandalosorum, suspectorum et prohibitorum, præmissa ratione, qua libri mali et noxii inquiri et extirpari possint. Reginæ Hradecii (Koenigsgraetz). The principal books contained in it are German and Bohemian: there are but few Latin*. * STRUVII Biblioth. ed. Jugler, pp. 1658, 9. CHAPTER V. AUSTRIAN-BELGIC Index, manuscript and unpublished, prepared for the Netherlands, 1735, et seq:—Bossuet and his Exposition—Roman Indexes, 1744 and 1750-SPANISH Index, Prohibitory and Expurgatory, 1747-ROMAN Indexes, 1758 and 1786-SWEDISH History of Prohibited Books, 1764-AUSTRIAN Indexes from 1763 to 1778-Giornale Ecclesiastico from 1785 to 1798-SPANISH Indice Ultimo, 1790, and Suplemento, 1805-Subsequent censorial operations-Present force of the Bull in Coena Domini-ROMAN Indexes, 1806 and 1819-Parisian edition, 1826; of Brussels, 1828-GALLICAN Catalogue and Arrets, 1827-Separate Decrees-Works non-condemned by the authors and patrons of the Papal Indexes-Roman Liturgical books. WE are now called upon to revisit a country to which we have long been strangers, but which took the lead with great energy. and perseverance in the productions which form the subject of this volume-the Netherlands. Something like a preparation appeared in a slight and unauthorized work, just noticed, published at Namur. But more formal and resolute efforts began to be made about the time to which our chronology has brought us; and, although eventually abortive, they discover in the circumstances so much of the genuine spirit of the great power by which such efforts are animated and sustained-so much of the ambition, the encroachment, and the savage intolerance of the papal system operating by its most congenial instruments, Inquisitions and Jesuits-that our attention, although rather extended, will be well rewarded, by directing it to the specimen about to be exhibited. The principal materials of the detail are derived from two manuscript volumes in folio in my possession, which, from the last date contained in them, appear to have been written about the year 1766. But being written in different hands, and before the whole was put into binding, portions may have been, and probably were, executed, soon after the first date, which is 1735*. The title is CATALOGUS PRELIMINARIS donec amplior sequatur, Quorundam Librorum tum prohibitorum tum noxiorum, aut Periculosorum et Proscriptorum e BELGIO AUSTRIACO, pro Informatione ac Directione deputatorum ad Librorum examen, Censuram, approbationem, &c., nec non pro Cautela, et Regula Typographorum, Bibliopolarum, aliorumque Rei Litteraria studiosorum, universorumque Lectorum in Belgio Austriaco. Then follows an INSTRUCTIO SUMMARIA, consisting of fourteen paragraphs of General Rules, which we shall have to recur to. The body of the Index immediately succeeds, under this title: INSTRUCTIO SPECIFICA, sive Cato * Mr. William Baynes, Paternoster-row, of whom I purchased the MS., believes that it came from the Library of the Abbey of Tongerloo, in Brabant. logus, ac designatio quorundam Librorum tum prohibitorum tum noxiorum, aut periculosorum et proscriptorum e Belgio Austriaco, qui plerumque propriis, quantum fieri potuit, titulis, et ordine alphabetico proponuntur. MONITUM. Libri qui hic proscribuntur in uno aut altero idiomate, censeri debent proscripti in quocunque alio idiomate sint impressi nisi omnino constet de illorum correctione et Legitima approbatione; idem statuendum de Variis ejusmodi Librorum Editionibus. It is peculiar to this Index to separate from the titles of the books condemned, the grounds upon which they are condemned, in a distinct list, which follows and refers to the former by numbers, under the title, QUALIFICATIONES ET CENSURE LIBROorum. There is an addition of Omitted Books. The remainder of the volumes consists of documents relative to the project, of which a part has been published in the Supplementum to the Collection of the Works of Z. B. van ESPEN, in fol., printed at Brussels, 1768. This author indeed, though not living at the time, was in a peculiar manner connected with the whole undertaking. He was among the most formidable opponents whom the Jesuits had to encounter. But we must go a little to the origin of things. The Netherlands, the most prolific field of literal wars, was the same of the theologic one between the Jesuits and Jansen ists. Jansenius was a bishop in that country, and Quesnel, who adopted and rendered popular his peculiar opinions, retired to the same, and was so attractive to some, and so formidable to others, as to give his name to a new sect, called, after him, Quesnelism. It was not probable that their near, indeed intermixed, neighbours, the Jesuits, would long continue a cordial concord with their old opponents; and, flushed with the victory which they had obtained by the papal condemnation of the hostile doctrines, a victory of which they had good reason to repent, they would not want the will, at least, and the endeavour, to put these troublesome enemies in chains. Towards the close of a Life, subjoined to the supplemental volume of the great Jurist who has been alluded to, we learn that the persecution which drove a man of eighty-two to seek refuge in another country, terminated in its natural consequence, his death, which happened in 1728. This was the signal for his enemies to make their grand effort; and no means appeared so eligible and likely to succeed as that of forming a new catalogue of prohibited books, in which should be inserted the works of Van Espen. This they did in the very year immediately succeeding his death; and they had so much influence with the Governess, as to procure a placard, of June 25, 1729, |