In Lecture III., the Author illustrates the tyranny which Popery exercises over its own adherents, in demanding an exposure of their secret thoughts and actions.

I refer to what is called Auricular Confession, the recital which every Catholic, male or female, is compelled to make to a priest, of all the sins of which he has been guilty, since the last opportunity of the kind, in thought, in word, or in action. When this is done, the priest has power to absolve him; and of the advantages of this sacrament, as it is termed, he is enjoined to avail himself at least once a year. Frequent confession is encouraged, but, annual confession is required; and it cannot be desirable to any sincere Catholic to make the intervals between such exercises long, as he is taught to believe, that "the absolution hereupon pronounced is not conditional or de clarative only, but absolute and judicial." Never was such an engine devised by other tyrants to rivet chains upon the spirit, to entrap the wary, and to enslave the strong. The Catholic Sovereign cannot confer with his Secretary of State on any project which may be deemed heretical, or which is designed to oppose the exorbitant pretensions of Rome, without exposing himself afterwards to an insidious cross-ex amination by an emissary of the Popedom, The Catholic inquirer after truth, if present among us this evening, must confess the occurrence to his spiritual adviser, and submit to such verbal reproof and corpo ral chastisement, as bigotry might deem it expedient to inflict. The Catholic son must reveal the most private discourse with his father, if any part of it appear to him to be criminal in the eye of the church; and the Catholic wife must, in many instances, be obliged to make such communications as necessarily imply the guilt of her husband, Oh what a powerful instrument of despotism is this! Once in the net, escape is almost impossible. Spies on your actions constitute your household; and your own lips are enborned to betray you. The thoughts of your heart are demanded; you must lay bare your bosom, or by concealment incur the guilt of sacrilege. Thus the spiritual tyrant of a little hamlet is put in possession of the secrets of every family, and the imaginations of every heart, and can turn his knowledge to whatever account his ambition or his cupidity, his passions or his appetites may dictate. Thus a crafty dependant of the Man of Rome may pry into the mysteries of every cabinet, by putting such questions to a superstitious. Sovereign or Privy Counsellor, as an adept in the system can ask, and none but an adept would be able to evade.

The tyranny of Popery further appears in its assumption of authority to control and to punish its votaries of every rank and station in society. This arises as naturally from Auricular Confession, as Auricular Confession arises from the right of the clergy to determine what actions are sinful, and what doctrines are true. The priest, to whom the penitent confesses, is the sole judge of his demerit; to him alone, therefore, it belongs to decide what quantity of guilt is incurred, and what penalty wisdom and holiness require. It is usual to attach some penance to the grant of absolution; but the nature and the degree vary according to the criminality imputed, or the rigour which

it is deemed expedient to exercise. It may be to repeat the seven penitential psalms; it may be to receive a number of stripes; to wear a hair shirt, or to perform a pilgrimage; or it may be to pay for a number of masses. When Princes have dared to oppose the will of the Sovereign Pontiff, punishments have been inflicted on them still more terrific and efficacious measures have been taken to reduce them to obedience. In some cases, the dominions of the rebellious potentate have been laid under an Interdict; and his subjects have been excited to discontent by the inconvenience they experienced through his crime, when public worship has been suspended, the sacraments refused, and the dead buried without the usual solemnities. If the Interdict has failed to humble the refractory monarch, or if it was not deemed expedient to employ its agency, sentence of excommunica tion has been issued against him. In not less than sixty instances, according to historic testimony, has this dreaded punishment been inflicted by offended Popes on Sovereign Princes. Then what true son of the Church could reconcile it with his conscience to obey an excommunicated king? The ties of allegiance were loosed; the authority of the ruler was destroyed. In not a few instances, personal insults have been added to public degradation. Thus, Henry IV. the Emperor of Germany, was kept three days in the open air, with his feet bare and his head uncovered, waiting for an audience from Pope Gregory VII.; who, at the expiration of that period, with much condescension received his submissions, and removed the excommunication under which he laboured; but prohibited him from exercising any function of royalty. Thus, Frederic I., who had announced his determination to maintain the dignity of the empire, and lessen the power of the Pontiff, was compelled, after exhibiting unavailing tokens of reluctance, to perform the office of equerry to Pope Adrian IV. by holding his stirrup while he mounted his horse. Thus, Henry II. of England, was constrained to suffer his naked back to be scourged by monks at the tomb of St. Thomas à Becket, to atone for his alleged acquiescence in the death of that ambitious Prelate. And thus, John, after having been excommunicated and assailed by Papal bulls, one of which absolved his subjects from their oaths of allegiance, another of which called on Christian princes to assist in his overthrow, was ultimately obliged to resign his kingdom to Pope Innocent III., whose legate trampled under his feet the money presented by the humiliated Sovereign, and retained the crown and sceptre five whole days before he deigned to restore them."

In Lecture the Fifth, Mr. G. shews the tendency of Popery to be productive of ignorance, irreligion, and infidelity. But before he proceeds to substantiate these charges, he makes two or three admissions. We shall transcribe the latter two of these as our concluding extract.

My second admission is, that among the adherents of Popery, there are many who do not participate in its spirit. As there are nominal Protestants who are not influenced by the sentiments to which

they subscribe, but who act in opposition to them; so there are nomi nal Papists, whose hearts are not moulded into the form it is adapted to impose. Particularly is that the case with the Roman Catholics of this country, whose exemption from the despotism that is exercised where the government is Popish, and where the evil operates with unmitigated violence, has caused them to disapprove much which Spaniards or Italians professing the same faith would unreservedly extol. Among them are many persons whose minds are considerably enlightened, whose views are liberal, and whose feelings are tolerant.

I further admit, that there are individuals in the communion of the See of Rome, whose piety we have no reason to doubt. A pleasing persuasion may be indulged, I think, with propriety, that the reliance of many who venerate the Pope as head of the Church on earth, is placed on the atoning sacrifice of Christ,-that their professed desire to serve the Redeemer is sincere, and that their own consciences condemn them not in those things which they practice.

"I should not think it honourable to go through this course of Lectures without making mention especially of one, who for several years past has been doing the work of God on the Continent of Europe, with assiduity, zeal, and intrepidity, which well entitle him to rank with Luther. No lover of good men ought to be ignorant of the name of Leander Van Ess. Why he should continue in the Church of Rome, I cannot tell; reasons or prejudices, it is not my province to say which, satisfy his conscience; they would not, it is probable, satisfy mine; but it is to his Master only he has to answer: I will claim him as a fellow-servant, while I see that under the garb of a priest, he is doing the work of a reformer. Not only do his letters breathe a spirit of piety which would be creditable to a martyr; not only does he distribute without scruple to those by whom he is surrounded, Protestant versions of the Bible; he has himself, translated the New Testament into the language of his countrymen, and assisted in distributing with truly Christian benevolence, not thousands of copies only, but hundreds of thousands. "In the kingdom of Wurtemburg," Dr. Pinkerton writes, in 1821, "there have been circulated upwards of 38,000 copies of his New Testa ment; in the States of Baden, 20,000; in Switzerland, 10,000; in the Austrian dominions, 24,500; in Bavaria, about 3,000; in Nassau, 10,000; in the States of Darmstadt, upwards of 10,000; in and about Elberfield, 3,000; in the country about Munster, 2,000; in and near Osnabruck, 6,000; in the principality of Hildesheim, 10,000; in Silesia, upwards of 30,000; in and around Frankfort on the Main, 10,000; in the country around Fulda, 5,000. In addition to these general items, there have been 239,663 copies circulated in smaller numbers, and through various channels, in every part of Germany, and other countries of Europe where German Catholics are found. Thus the whole issues of Van Ess's Testament, up to the present date, have been 421,163 copies." Surely we may call him

Eighteenth Report of the British and Foreign Bible Society Appendix, p. 39.

brother, and fellow labourer in the service of God, for, as he himself has remarked, "no work can be more justly called His, than the diffusion of his word."'

Mr. Groser has been at considerable pains to make himself acquainted with his subject, and though his citations are numerous, and sometimes long, he has evidently thought it out; which, in a young minister, is hopeful and very commendable. His style is generally clear and at times impressive. There are a few places that require revision, of which the Author seems to be aware, and he bespeaks the reader's candour.

Art. VI. A Tale of Paraguay. By Robert Southey, Esq. LL.D. Poet Laureate, &c. &c. 12mo. pp. 200, (2 plates). Price ICs. 6d. London. 1825.

IN our review of Mr. Campbell's Theodric, we ventured to remark, that the Author could no more write a long poem, than Southey can a short one, who, of all our living poets, is the least, lyrical and the best story-teller. The present volume will, we imagine, be admitted as ample confirmation of our eritical sentence. To contrast it with Theodric, would indeed be as unfair and invidious as to bring the Vision of Judgement or the Carmen Triumphale into comparison with any one of the thrilling lyrics of the Poet of Hope and Freedom. But with Gertrude of Wyoming, we may fairly compare the Tale of Paraguay, in which Dr. Southey, ceasing from desultory fight," and renouncing the lawless freedom of versification in which he has so long expatiated, has clothed his verse with the golden shackles and sweet constraint of the Spenserian stanza. The scene too, as in the rival' poem, is transatlantic, the personages Indians. Thus, whether designedly or not, we have the two poets fairly placed in comparison; and the general result, may, we think, be summed up in a few words. No single stanza in the poem before us can be compared with some in the Gertrude; but the interest that the story excites, is far more intense, the scene presents itself to the imagination in much more vivid colours, and the impression which it makes as a whole, though less pleasing, is more powerful. There is a certain breadth and freedom in Southey's style, an apparent facility, and a complete mastery of his subject, which give a peculiar charm to his narrative poems. Notwithstanding the slow, measured march of the stanza he has adopted, there is a rapidity of movement in his verse, by which we are constantly borne along, and the interest is seldom suffered to languish. On the other hand, the melody of Campbell's less flowing and

copious verse atones for its occasional restraint and inequalities, its rapids and its shallows,-like a wild rivulet, exquisite in parts, but not navigable. Theodric, if we may be allowed to pursue the comparison, was an attempt to turn this wild stream into a canal, for which it was never designed, and it became despoiled of all its native character. But, in his lyrical pieces, we seem to see it near its source, where, pure, deep, and strong, it foams and sparkles along its narrow channel, all life, and spirit, and beauty.

is

Our object in drawing this comparison, it will be seen, to do justice to both. We have in some circles heard the admirers of Campbell speak in terms of ignorant depreciation, of Southey and the Lakers; to whom, however, as the disciples of Cowper, literature is chiefly indebted for the completion of the reform, begun by the Author of the Task, in the character of our national poetry, and its emancipation from the French school of Pope and his imitators. On the other hand, we have known the votaries of the Poet-laureate speak most haughtily and contemptuously, and a little bitterly, of Campbell,-(as perhaps the admirers of Thomson might, in his day, have spoken of Collins,) measuring his merit by the quantity, of his productions, and mistaking short poems for little ones. The transcendent beauty of Campbell's odes, such persons have not ventured to deny; but these, it has been said, are few and far between.' Can he shew his ten octavo volumes of poetry like Scott, or his fourteen foolscaps like the Author of Madoc? Such comparisons as these, it must be admitted, shew neither good sense, nor taste, nor candour. The quality of lyric poetry of the higher order, is such as forbids its being produced with the facility with which canto after canto and volume after volume may be furnished by a writer endowed with a talent for narrative and descriptive poetry. The grass is always growing; the violet has its season: how ridiculous would be a comparison between them! Handel is reported to have said, that he would forego the credit of any whole oratorio that he had composed, to have been the author of a certain simple, but matchless air. Southey might, with less sacrifice, make a similar declaration with regard to one of his five epics, set against Hohenlinden or the Soldier's Dream. But we all love our own; and such transfers, even were they practicable, would be inadmissible. Posterity, careless of the disputes between contemporary authors about precedence, will cherish alike the fame of both Southey and Campbell, as each in his peculiar walk unrivalled. As to the political animosities which sometimes give edge and bitterness to poetical rivalries, prompting the angry names of servile and liberal, VOL. XXIV. N.S. 2 F