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the little strength which her protracted sufferings had left her, and the unhappy Maria Francisca died soon after, having scarcely reached her twenty-fifth year.

CORRUPTION OF THE ROMAN CATHOLIC CLERGY AT THE PERIOD OF THE COUNCIL OF TRENT.

The corrupt morals which prevailed among the Roman Catholic bishops and higher clergy, are attested by the legates who presided at the first sessions of the Council of Trent.

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"Hoc enim summatim dicimus de omni genere armorum si, qui illa contra nos tractarunt, a suis ecclesiis pastores fugarunt, ordines confuderunt, laicos in episcoporum locum suffecerunt, ecclesiæ bona diripuerunt, cursum verbi Dei impediverunt hic, inquam, dicimus, nihil horum esse, quod in libro abusuum pastorum, maxima illorum pars, qui hoc nomen sibi vendicant, per se factum esse, si legere libuerint, non scriptum apertis verbis inveniant. Nostram enim ambitionem, nostram avaritiam, nostras cupiditates, his omnibus malis populum Dei prius affecisse statim inveniet atque harum vi ab ecclesiis pastores fugari, easque pabulo verbi privari, bona ecclesiarum, quæ sunt bona pauperum ab illis tolli, indignis sacerdotia conferri, et illis qui nihil a laicis præterquam in vestis genere, ac ne in hoc quidem differunt, dari. Quid enim horum est, quod negare possimus per hos annos a nobis factum esse.”—Concione ad Concilium, pp. 736, 737. Collect Labbei et Gossartii.

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K.-Page 151.

REAL INFLUENCE OF ROME AND THE MONKS UPON

LEARNING.

Opinion is no less subject than taste to the periodical turns and changes of fashion. The love of the romantic has lately raised every thing belonging to the middle ages in the estimation of the reading public, and monks and monasteries share the favour into which the period of their full prosperity has grown. We constantly hear of the services which the monks and their church have rendered to religion and learning; and men seem willing either to disbelieve or forget the deep wounds which their gross ignorance, and still grosser immorality, gave to both.

These alternate turns of the public attention to the favourable and unfavourable side of historical subjects deprive us of the benefits of experience, as we might derive them from the records of former times. To judge of the utility of old institutions, we should be careful not to mistake the accidental effects which they may have produced, for the predominant and decided tendency of their moral operation. There is no human establishment unmixed with evil: of this we are well aware; but few men are fully impressed with the fact, that no pure and unmixed evil can long exist, except by open violence. When, therefore, we see any law, custom, or establishment supported and cherished for a length of time, we may be sure that its existence is connected with some real, though partial, advantages. The philosopher, in such cases, should not confine his observation to the partial operation on either side, good or evil; but examine in the first place, whether the original rise of the institution took place at the ex

pense of social prosperity; and next, whether, upon the whole, it was calculated eventually to improve or degrade society.

The epigram made upon the usurer who, having impoverished a district, founded an extensive alınshouse to keep the poor he had made, is, I believe, perfectly applicable to the monks and their peculiar church, in regard to the mental interests of mankind. They first barbarized the polished subjects of imperial Rome, and then fed them with the intellectual garbage of their schools.

A number of circumstances made the Christians of the primitive ages extremely averse to profane literature. The first cause of this was their general want of education; for it pleased God to change the moral face of the world by the instrumentality of the poor and ignorant, that the supernatural work of his grace in the conversion of mankind might be evident. "Not many wise men after the flesh, not many mighty, not many noble are called; but God hath chosen the foolish things of the world to confound the wise, that no flesh should glory in his presence*." The abuse of the name of science was, in the second place, a source of strong dislike to knowledge among the early Christians. Abominable practices of sortilege and imposture were common among those men, who, under the name of mathematicians, Chaldeans, and astrologers, were known all over the empire in the first century of the Christian æra. The prevalence of these abuses may be conceived by the multitude of books on magic which were burnt at Ephesus, in consequence of the preaching of Paul†.

But nothing appears to have so much prepared the darkness

1 Cor. i. 27, 29.

"Many of them also which used curious arts brought their books together, and burned them before all men; and they counted the price of them, and found it fifty thousand pieces of silver." Acts xix. 19.

of the middle ages, as the prevalence of monkery in the Christian church. The extraordinary reverence paid to the grossly ignorant multitudes who inhabited the Egyptian deserts * must naturally have tended to the discredit of study and acquirements. When the monastic institution was introduced into the West, and became widely spread under the patronage of the Popes, a spirit of opposition to every thing that can refine and enlighten the mind became visible. As both literature and the arts had flourished among the heathen, zeal and piety conspired to render them odious to the generality of Christians. If, as there is reason to suspect it, the Christians joined the barbarians in the destruction of the works of art, the charge falls especially upon the monks, who appear to have courted and gained the favour of the invaders†.

But nothing is more certain than that the neglect of ancient literature, and the substitution of scholastic learning, was chiefly the work of him who, as it were in mockery of titles bestowed by men, is called the Great among the Popes who bore the name of Gregory. That his zeal in the propagation of Christianity was extraordinary and sincere, it would be injustice to doubt; but it is equally indubitable, that, to a mind grossly superstitious and ignorant, he joined a shocking in

* There were 76,000 monks in Egypt at the end of the 4th century. ↑ Dr. Clarke, in his work on Greek Marbles, seems to understand two passages from Eunapius in this sense. I confess that, considering the circumstances of the case, the fact is extremely probable to me; but the words of Eunapius may be understood, not of direct, but indirect co-operation with the irruption of the barbarians into Greece. Eunapius says, "that the impiety of those who wore black garments (the monks) had opened the passage of the Thermopyla to Alaric and his barbarians." This may be understood in the same sense as it is said that the weakness of the Roman government invited the invasion of the northern tribes. The Latin translation is too definite for the original, and does not render it strictly. Instead of the abstract word agßa, it has impia gens. See Eunapius De Vit. Philos. in Maximo.

difference to moral character in those who felt disposed to favour the Roman see, and her then maturing plans of supremacy. His flattery of the monster Phocas is a disgrace both to Gregory and to his see, and shows the character of papal ambition in its true colours*.

Gregory enjoyed a most extraordinary moral influence in his time, which he wholly directed to the object of effacing the few remaining traces of ancient literature, and introducing monkish learning in its worst shape. "A report has reached our ears," he writes to a professor of grammar, "which I cannot mention without shame, that your fraternity expounds grammar to some persons: this is so painful to us, and it so vehemently raises our scorn, that it has changed all I have previously said into wailing and sorrow-the same mouth, indeed, cannot hold the praises of Jupiter and of Christ." Gregory made a public boast of his ignorance, and inveighed with such vehemence against all polite literature, that the report of his having burnt the Palatine library, collected at Rome by the emperors, though doubted by modern critics, receives a strong confirmation from his character. "I scorn,” he says, "that art of speaking which is conveyed by external teaching. The very tenor of this epistle shows that I do not avoid the clashing of metacism, nor the obscurity of barbarism: I despise all trouble about prepositions and cases, because I hold it most unworthy to put the heavenly oracles under the restraint of a grammariant."

With such a pattern of elegance and learning before them,

* See the article under Gregory's name in Bayle's Dictionary. See also Gibbon.

† Non metacismi collisionem effugio, non barbarismi confusionem devito: situs, motusque præpositionum casusque servare contemno, quia indignum vehementer existimo, ut verba cœlestis oraculi restringam sub regulis Donati.

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