attract the notice of strangers: these are too often the least respectable portion of the community. Vice courts notice, and tilts at all she meets : virtue seeks retirement, and must be pursued into her retreats to be discovered. To these, English travellers seldom followed her; if they had, they would have found, in every rank of life, a due proportion both of common and exemplary virtue. I request you to peruse the "Essai Historique sur "l'Influence de la Religion en France, pendant le "dix-neuvieme Siecle, 2 vols. 8vo."

You will find by it, that France abounded throughout that period, in persons both secular and ecclesiastic, and of each sex, whose virtue was pure, and whose habits were regular and edifying.

Our

At one time this country was the charitable asylum of 8,000 ecclesiastics. How pious, how humble, how unoffending, and, in every account how truly respectable' was their demeanour. country was also at the same time the receptacle of about 2,000 lay emigrants. How patiently did the great majority of these submit to their severe trial! How cheerfully did the father and the son engage in any occupation, and the mother and the daughter become servants of all work, to increase the family means of subsistence, and render it as comfortable as possible. Surely, persons who have borne adversity so well, must have been "deeply principled in Virtue's book."

Nothing could be more beneficent or more

honourable than the conduct both of the British government, and of thousands of British individuals, to these unhappy emigrants. I have transcribed in a note to my preceding letter, what I have written upon it in three of my works: this passage has often been translated into French, and never without an expression of gratitude by the translator to the British nation. In fact, it was a deed,

"Above the Greek, above the Roman name."

YOUNG.

How pleasing is it to dwell on these themes!

XII. & XIII.

Is the Reviva of Letters owing to the Reformation.

4. What you say upon the diffusion of learning before the Reformation, rather confirms than weakens what I have writtten upon that subject. As an Englishman, I am proud of the names of Bacon, Locke, Newton, Shakespeare, and Milton, which You hold forth to view; but, when in your production of these names, You exult over us, I must observe, that the Church of England cannot claim the Arian Newton, the Socinian Locke, or the Anti-prelatic Milton. Shakespeare was probably a Roman Catholic; his father certainly was.

"You desire me (page 154) to compare the "state of knowledge in the countries which are "subjected to the influence of Romanism and Pro

"testantism." In a trifling publication * I have inserted a comparison;-I confess it to be on a very small scale, of " the writers in the British "< æra of literature," with those of "the æra of "Lewis XIV." It does not appear to me quite clear, that on a general comparison of the arts, the sciences, and the literature of both territories, the balance would prove so greatly in favour of England, as the English seem to take for granted. All foreigners observe that England possesses her due share of soli-ipsiism.

The state of literature in Spain is truly respectable. Is there more literature in Sweden, Norway and Denmark? Doctor Clarke, in his travels through Sweden, observes that "the religious con"troversy in which that state was involved, arrested "the progress of letters for almost a century."

Permit me to assure You, that Greek literature is "not," as you assert, "almost extinct in Italy;" and when you write, that "sacred literature has "been little cultivated by the Romanists, "--I read and admire. Rivington's Catalogue, alone, particularly that part of it which relates to sacred literature, completely confutes this assertion.

Referring you to what I have stated succinctly in my twelfth letter to Doctor Southey, and more at length in my "Essay on the Discipline of the "Church of Rome, respecting the General Perusal

* Reminiscences; XXXI. 3.

+ See Capmany Teatro Historico Critico de la Eloquencia Española ;---Bouterwek's History of Spanish Literature.

"in the vulgar Tongue by the Laity," I beg leave to say, that your account of these restraints is unmercifully exaggerated. Having lived long in France, and being well acquainted with the literary and devotional habits of that people, Taver, without the slightest fear of refutation, that the Bible was as much read and understood in France as in England. wow buton valed edi

ten

I will admit, that it was not read at so early an age in France, as it is by English Protestants. But, absit invidia verbo, I will presume to say, that, taking a Protestant boy of the age of t years, who has read the Bible in the manner in which it is usually read before that age in England, and a Catholic boy of the same age, who has been taught the French catechism, and particularly "Fleury's Historical Catechism," in the manner in which they were usually taught in France, -the latter will be found to have quite as full and as clear a knowledge of the history, the morality, and the religion of the Old and New Testament, as the former. ombe ban

"With us, also," you sa you say, (page 154), « are the "editors of the Hebrew text." Have you not heard of the Polyglots of Alcala, of Antwerp, of Paris? Of the Venitian and Plantinian editions of the Hebrew text? Of those of Xantes Pagninus, and Arias Montanus? Of that of Lewis Biel, a Jesuit? or that of Houbigeant, an oratorian? This cost 35,000 livres, and a volume of it, while I read your astonishing assertion, lay on my table. G

LETTER XIV.

QUEEN MARY.

In this letter You profess to state the grounds upon which I have endeavoured in "The Book of "the Roman Catholic Church," to extenuate the persecutions in the reign of Queen Mary.

1. You say (page 161), that " my apology "for the persecutions in the reign of Queen Mary, " is derived from considering the former conduct of Cranmer, in passing an unjustifiable law, by "which he condemned to death the advocates of the "Romish opinions."

66

This I mention as one extenuating circumstance; but I state others:-1st, The rebellions and treasons against Mary. You admit, (p. 174), that "at the "time of Mary's decease, a rebellion was almost "raging against her."-2d, The many indignities, some of a very atrocious nature, which were offered to her.-3rd, That there was not, in Mary's time, a Protestant state, in which similar executions for religion had not taken place.-4th, That there scarcely was a primitive reformer, by whom religious persecution was not justified or practised.— 5th, And that several persons were executed in the reign of Queen Mary for heresy, who might justly have been executed for treason.