I met with in a certain library abroad, of a very ancient date: so that I am confident Dr. Gee did not impose upon the world. Yet I dare not affirm Father Parsons was the author. However, there is a tradition among us that the work was his. If an unknown testimony will be of any force, I have among my collections a loose paper, written eighty years since: whereby the party affirms, he had seen the original of that performance in Father Parsons's own hand; subscribed: Hæc habui, quæ suggererem. Robertus Parsonius.' I subjoin the remainder, because it shews to what feeling we are indebted for so much candour from the papal historian. But let that be as you will. There being nothing criminal in the work, it can't redound to the author's dispraise.' By criminal, I presume the writer meant treasonable. I must be indulged in expatiating still further upon this work, for important purposes. In Part I. and Ch. v., or p. 56, in Gee's edition, mention is made, for the first time, of a COUNCIL OF REFORMATION, the detailed consideration of which occupies the seventh chapter. Wood, in his Athenæ Oxon., supposes this to be another title of the work which we are noticing. There appears, indeed, to have been a work under this title; and it is very particularly noticed and described by the secular priest, WILLIAM WATSON, in his Decacordon of Ten Quodlibetical Questions, &c., in the Fourth, and Article II. He gives the contents of it under the title of Statutes, and that which allows and recommends detraction and calumny of opposers is remarkable, as being most strictly observed; designating the work, in the close, as a huge volume.' This, with the greater precision in the particulars detailed, renders it nearly demonstrable, that the work, although a homogeneous, was yet a different one from that before us, and probably existing only in manuscript. But the fact of two deliberate and elaborate works, tending to the same object, is an evidence and measure of the intensity both of effort and expectation in the party with which they originated. The passage, then, to our immediate purpose is the following, in Part I., ch. ix., pp. 94, 95, 'Publick and private Libraries must be searched and Examined 7 C for Books, as also all Book-binders, Stationers, and Booksellers Shops, and not only HERETICAL BOOKS and PAMPHLETS, but also prophane, vain, lascivious, and other such hurtful and dangerous Poysons, are utterly to be removed, burnt, supPRESSED, and severe order and PUNISHMENT appointed for such as SHALL CONCEAL these kind of Writings; and like order set down for printing o good things for the time to come.' It was quite upon the papal system to associate really pernicious books with that which it calls heresy. Unite with what has been adduced the proposal in the next chapter to abrogate all laws in prejudice of the Catholick Roman Religion, and to restore, and PUT IN FULL AUTHORITY again, all old laws that EVER were in use in England, in favour of the same, and AGAINST HERESIES AND HERETICKS;' and then conjecture, whether Prohibitory and Expurgatory Indexes, in accordance, at least, with the Roman, would be unknown in Britain and Ireland. But these and all other, whether intentions or measures, let us piously repose in the hands of Him, who can disappoint or reverse the most artfully contrived machinations of human policy, and whose infinite wisdom enables him, in the mode of doing it, to inscribe the character of truth so legibly upon the result, that what is simply counteraction and defeat can never be mistaken for a natural and just effect. Sutton Coldfield, |