:

of books. This is to be committed to learned and pious men; and the work to be examined, when expurgated and amended to the satisfaction of the appointed judges, is permitted. The corrector and expurgator is to look very diligently into every thing, indexes, &c.; and several objects are to be attended to as his guide-every thing anti-catholic, and against the church, and in praise of heretics, as well as what is immoral and injurious to the reputation of others. Catholic books, after the year 1515, if objectionable, are to be corrected * but the antients, only where errors have been introduced by the fraud of heretics, &c. III. The Impression of books. The work to be printed must first be shewn to the bishop or inquisitor, and approved by either of them: when printed, it must be compared with the MS. and found cor-rect, before it can be sold. Printers must be orthodox men, bind themselves by oath to deal faithfully and catholically, and the more learned and eminent of them must profess the creed of Pius IV. A condemned book, when expurgated, must express the fact in the title.

These Rules would give as much power to the executors of them as they could wish.

*FRA PAOLO, in his Discorso dell' origine dell' Inquisit., remonstrates at great length against this injunction. Ed. 1639, pp. 173, &c.

We need only say of this Index, that an Appendix is subjoined, in portions, to every division of the original.

Of this Index there are two other editions, one in 12mo., the other in 8vo., printed in the same year and at the same place, 1596 and Rome, which are peculiar and valuable, as having subjoined to each of them the first collection of Decreta. Both these editions are attached to editions of the Elenchus of Capiferri, the first of the date of 1632, the second of that of 1640. These productions will come to be described in their place. The earnest injunctions of Pius V. induced the church of Bohemia to publish and, I presume, enforce, the Tridentine Index, which appeared, according to Peignot, at Prague, in the year of the Clementine edition, 1596. Some remarks will occur on this subject in our notice of the edition at Prague in 1726.*

A small reprint likewise of this edition of the Roman Index by Clemens deserves to be recorded, on account of a slight deviation at the close of the title-Additis Regulis, ac exequendæ prohibitionis ratione; and on account of the printer and the place where printed-Leodii. Ex Biblio

* There appeared INDEX Expurgatorius in Libros Theologiæ Mystica D. Henr. Harpii. Paris, 1598. It is exhibited with the rest in the Biblioth. Select. of C. MICHIELS.

polio Henrici Hovi. Anno M.DC.VII. Cum Gratia & Privilegio S. Cels.

We now advance to perhaps the most extraordi

nary

and scarcest of all this class of publications. It is the first and last, and incomplete expurgatory Index, which Rome herself has ventured to present to the world; and which, soon after the deed was done, she condemned and withdrew. But it is time to give the title: INDICIS LIBRORUM EXPURGANDORUM in studiosorum gratiam confecti. Tomus Primus. In quo Quinquaginta Auctorum Libri præ cæteris desiderati emendantur, Per Fr. JO. MARIAM BRASICHELLEN Sacri Palatii Apostolici Magistrum in unum corpus redactus, et publicæ commoditati æditus. Romæ, Ex Typographia R. Cam. Apost. MDCVII. Superiorum Permissu. 8vo. After a selection of some of the Rules in the last edition of the Prohibitory Index, the Editor, in an address, informs the reader that, understanding the expurgation of books not to be the least important part of his office, and wishing to make books more accessible to students than they were without expurgation, he had availed himself of the labours of his predecessors, and, adding his own, issued the present volume, intending that a second, which was in great readiness, should quickly follow; (but, alas! it was not allowed so to do.) Dated, Rome, from the Apostolic Palace, 1607.

The remonstrances and opposition created by this work made the rulers of Rome, who are not very willing to lose subjects, sick of the work of their servant, and very careful not to put their authority to the hazard in future. The experiment, indeed, was not only rash, but gratuitous. The Instructio of the immediately preceding Index had given complete power, by means of proper agents and prescribed corrections and expurgations, as the case required, of doing that secretly and securely, which, on the expurgatory system, must be done openly and with responsibility.

But the circumstances and contents of this volume are so extraordinary and important, that a rather minute examination will well reward our pains by the discoveries which it will present. If none more valuable result, it will afford some additional, and, it may be, unexpected insight into the logic and policy by which ecclesiastic Rome finds it expedient to support her system of faith. We will, therefore, discuss some of the articles, most important, not only to our particular purpose, but generally and in themselves, in the order in which they stand, which is, as usual, alphabetic. The first name, which will excite not only our attention but our surprise, is that of B. ARIAS MONTANUS*, who was the principal person con

* FRANCUS refers this insertion to the Index Sandoval. De Indic. pp. 202, 3. But this is the first.

cerned in the fabrication of the Belgic Index. He occupies about six pages of the present; and there suffers the same castigation and mutilation which he had formerly inflicted upon othersneque enim lex æquior ulla est, &c. The Biblia ROBERTI STEPHANI would furnish some remarks; but we shall find another place for them. We proceed then immediately to the longest and most important article in the whole volume, the Bibliotheca SS. Patrum, 1589, per Margarinum de la BIGNE*. We may dispose at once of the more regular and constantly recurring expurgations by observing, that in the general title of each volume the word Sanctorum, and wherever besides Sanctus, or S., and Divus, or D., is in the Roman sense, misapplied, i. e., applied to any who are not in the list of Roman saints, or inserted in the Roman Martyrology, these titles are either expunged or altered. The same general remark may be made respecting the names, and more especially the praises, of those who are esteemed heretics in the Italian church. An instance, of rather sweeping dimensions, to this effect occurs in the very outset of the critique. It is important further to observe, that as our expurgator was walking over rather tender ground, he has found it prudent to soften a large portion of his cen

A former edition of this work, that of 1575, had been reviewed, but much more sparingly, in the Spanish Expurgatory Index of 1584.