all the subsequent Roman Indexes flow, feel himself at liberty, not as to the respect, but as to the degree of respect, due to the deliberate and constantly renewed expression of judgment on religious subjects by the most sacred of all human authorities? The thing is not to be believed, whatever respectability may assert it. And, therefore, the caution which was needed, and which never forsook the gentlemen of Maynooth College, when upon their examination before the Commissioners in 1826, allowed Dr. Slevin, Præfect of the Dunboyne establishment, to admit, 'All Catholics will respect the prohibition of the Congregation of the Index*.' If this were not the case, how shall we account for the present publication of the Roman Index in France, where the encroachments of the papal see are resisted with the utmost jealousy, and at Brussels? Is it for the edification or conviction of heretics, or to supply them with matter of scandal? Or is it to direct and control the timid and obedient of the faithful? If it be said that the Company of Jesus are reco

* Eighth Report, p. 209.

vering their power and influence on the continent, this is not only a solution but a confirmation of the fact. And the position stands unshaken, that no influence but such as is extraneous and foreign restrains the most submissive and unlimited obedience to the censorial decisions of Rome in every country, whether totally or partially, and then as far as partially, subject to her dominion. ROME HAS SPOKEN: AND WILL NOT HER CHILDREN HEAR?

Perhaps no proof more practical and decisive of the good will of the devoted servants of the Italian see to confer on this nation the benefit of her literary restrictions, with the sufficient sanctions seldom overlooked by her, together with that of a sound Inquisition, although under another name, could be devised, than that which is furnished by a work, valuable for other important purposes, and naturally of very rare occurrence. It is a production of the celebrated Robert Parsons, and is thus entitled: A MEMORIAL of the REFORMATION OF ENGLAND: containing certain Notes and Advertisements, which seem might be proposed in the First Parliament and National

Council of our Country, after God, of his mercy, shall restore it to the Catholick Faith, for the better Establishment and Preservation of the said Religion. GATHEREd and set down By R. P., 1596. I quote the only accessible edition of the work, by E. GEE, Rector of St. Benedict, &c., London, 1690, who affirms that the original was presented to James II. by the Jesuits, and that he, the editor, had obtained it, with permission to publish it, from Lloyd, Bp. of St. Asaph, to whom it is dedicated. In addition to the internal evidence of authenticity which occurs in the book itself, and which, for such evidence, will be satisfactory to those who know how to weigh it, the testimony of the anonymous historian of the Church History of England, from the year 1500, &c., who passes under the name of DoD, although his real name is said to be TOOTELL, is of peculiar force, from the natural and evident prejudices of the writer. He writes, under his account of Parsons and his Works, of this in particular*: I remember to have seen an abstract of this book in a manuscript

*Vol. ii., p. 405.

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.

be indulged in expatiating still further

I must

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

e