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At Sittingbourne, 80, Mrs King. 50, Mr. J. White.

At Dover, Mr. Charles M'Dougall. 73, Mrs. Eldridge.

At Sandwich, Mr. Jameson. Mrs. Wright. At Bromley, the Rev. J. J. Telman, M.A. 78, Mrs. Wilson.

At West Malling, 61, Mr. W. Williams.
At New Romney, 48, Mr. John Mortley.
At Tenterden, 29, Mr. John Britcher.
At Smarden, 62, Matthew Parker.

At Dunkirk, Mrs. Branchet. At Deptford, 74, Jno. Hughes, esq. At Woolwich, 16, after a protracted and distressing illness, Agnes Boys, youngest daughter of Mr. S. B. Harman, bookseiler, of that place. At Hanchorne, 30, Sarah Beasted.

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At Brighton, Robert Suter, esq. to Miss Esther Vallance.

At Little Hampton, R. Ayton, esq. to Miss Ayton. Rev. R. Cranmer, of Mitcham, to Miss G. M. Window.

Died.]-At Chichester, 69, Mrs. Champion. 23, Owen Tudor, esq.

At Brighton, 72, Dr. Richard Dennison,
At River, 72, William Bridger, esq.
At Steyning, Mrs. Mary Parkinson.

At Seaford, 81, Elizabeth, wife of the Rev. T. Williams.

At West Firle, 76, Mrs. Elizabeth Marten.
At Brighton, Miss Margaret Yates.

HAMPSHIRE.

Some miscreants have of late employed themselves in setting the furze and brushwood of the new forest on fire.

An old Lady of Southampton kept all her rooms and herself in a continual state of darkness from the time of the late King's death to his interment !

The new large chapel above Bar, in Southampton, will shortly be opened.

Married.]-At Portsmouth, Mr. Luttrell, to Miss Maria Jarvoise,

At Southampton, L. Farquhar, esq. to Miss Maria Watts.

Died.]-At Eling, Ephraim Ohaffey Banger, shopkeeper, who was found in bed with his head nearly severed from his body by a razor, which was lying beside him.

At Winchester, Mrs. Wise. Mr. Samuel Walldin. Mrs. Gauntlett. 65, Mr. John Wills, sen. Mr. Lockett.

At Gosport, 66, Mr. Biddlecombe.
At Lymington, M. Samuel Janes.

At Portsmouth, 93, Mrs. Reynolds. Mrs.
Bingham relict of the Rev. Mr. B.
At Portsea, Mr. Redward, sen. Mrs.
Dipscomb. 91. Mr. John Hurst. 47, Mr.
J. Reading. 95, Mr. James Cannon.

WILTS.

Married.] At Twyford, Mr. G. Hunt, to Miss. Jones.

At Devizes, H. F. Bowness, esq. to Miss Hill. James Keene, esq. to Miss Dionysia Barnes.

F. H. Rumball, esq. to Miss Sophia Dore. Died.] At Westbury, 52, Mr. W. Smith. At Warminster, 75, Mr. Jarvies House. At Devizes, Mr. Perry.

At Maddit's Park, near Malmsbury, 69, Mr. Jno. Watts.

SOMERSETSHIRE.

Married.]-Mr. Isaac Niblet, to Miss Goodluck. Mr. Parker, to Mary, daughter of Captain William Outerbridge. Mr. Edmund May, of Redcliff, to Miss Hennegar. Mr. John Paine, to Miss Ropsen, of Stroud, Gloucester.

Died.] At Bath, Mrs. Weir. Miss Laura Hall. Frances, wife of lieutenant-colonel Grady. Lady Butler. Countess Nugent. Mrs. Wilcox.

DEVONSHIRE.

Devon Lent assizes commenced at Exeter on the 13th, and ended on the 21st ult. Thirteen prisoners received sentence of death.On the Crown side, an uncle and four nephews were arraigned for wholesale dealings, not only in smashing or passing forged notes, but also in horse-stealing.

Married.]-At Exeter, Thos. Wren, esq. to Deletia Montagu, daughter of Vice Admiral Barton.

At Berry-Pomeroy, Edward Manico, esq. to Mary, second daughter of W. Pulling, esq. John Spettigue Mill, esq. to Miss Mary Mill, of Pyworthy. Lieut.-Col. Tomkins, 58th foot, to Miss Woodriff, of Jamaica.

Died.]-At Exeter, 81, Wm. Parker, esq. Mrs. Cornish. Nathaniel Henry, son of the late Major Preston.

At Axminster, Mr. Sam. Thatcher.

At Barnstaple, Capt. Ferrieres, R. N. At Biddeford, Mrs. Lamping. 50, Mrs. J. Morrish.

CORNWALL.

At the Cornwall Assizes, the grand jury found a true bill against L. Evelyn and J. R. G. Graham, esqrs. the members lately returned for St. Ives; also against five others, for a conspiracy to return the members at the late election, by means of bribery and corruption. The grand jury have also found a true bill against Mr. Halse, the town clerk,

!

their agent, for bribery. A petition is preparing to the House of Commons against the late return; and four of the most eminent counsel on the western circuit are retained to conduct the prosecutions and petitions.

Married.]-At Lestwithiel, Mr. J. Baron, to Miss Littleton. At Falmouth, Miss Philpott, to Miss Godolphin. At Redruth, Mr. Bray, to Miss Noel.

Died.] At Marazion, 51, Hannibal Curnow Blewett, esq. At East Looe, 89, Mr. Sam. May, the oldest freeman of that boro'. At Truro, Mrs. Trahar. At Launceston, Miss Proctor. Mr. John Goodman. Mrs. Cooling. Mr. Michael Frost, alderman.

SCOTLAND.

At Glasgow, an Institution is about to be formed for the encouragement of the Fine Arts. An annual exhibition and a gallery form parts of the plan.

The distressed Reformers in the vicinity of Paisley lately appeared in arms and addressed a Proclamation or Appeal to the people of the United Kingdom, couched in very energetic language, calling on the people to leave off work till they had obtained a reform, and otherwise indicative of revolutionary designs, for the discovery of the authors of which a large reward has since been offered. A party of 60 of these armed patriots, on the 5th of April, were encountered by a squadron of 28 Hussars near Kilsyth on the Carron. They fought behind a wall, fired on the Hussars, who passed the wall, and then maintained the conflict with their pikes. One horse was killed, and two of the Hussars wounded; but four of the Radicals, as they are called, were killed, and others wounded, made prisoners and conveyed to Stirling Castle. This entire district appears, indeed, to be in a state of rebellious ferment. At Greenock a distressing affair occurred on the 8th of April, the Armed Association (guarding 5 Radicals

to prison) on being laughed at, or hissed, or pelted by the crowd, fired, killed 5, and wounded 20, (five of whom are s since dead)! Such were the effects of employing partizans instead of disciplined regulars. Fifteen others have since been lodged in the Tolbooth, Edinburgh.

IRELAND.

Many of the poor men who were led to seek redress against high rents by insurrection, having been tried and executed, the disturbed district are reduced to tranquility.

At Cork an earthquake was lately felt which lasted about eight or ten seconds but no mischief occurred.

Died] Near Killarney, aged 117, Theodore O'Sullivan, a celebrated Irish Bard. Lately at Cullenswood, near Dublin, in the 70th year of his age, Rear-Admiral Sir Chichester Fortescue, Knt. Ulster King at Arms.

FOREIGN.

With great regret we learn the melancholy death of Joseph Ritchie, Esq., at Mourzuk, in Africa, about 400 miles south of Tripoli. He was a native of Otley, and was a young man of great abilities and enterprise; he was employed under the auspices of the African Association, to make discoveries in the interior of Africa, and particularly to endeavour to penetrate through the Great Desert of Tombucto. The death of this enterprising young man is particularly to be lamented, as we are afraid a knowledge of the interior of Africa will scarcely be accomplished in our days. How many men of science have fallen victims to their thirst for knowledge! Of six persons who accompanied Nehrbur the Danish traveller, in his tour through Arabia, he alone survived. Since then, Hornnman, Mungo Park, and Burckhardt, have also fallen a sacrifice to a climate which seems peculiarly obnoxious to European constitutions.

TO CORRESPONDENTS.

The Poem of X. and the paper signed CANDIDUS, will be returned on application to the writers, as we have discovered that they have appeared in another work; and we feel it necessary, as far as possible to avoid plagiarisms, and to guard ourselves against correspondents who do not consider us worthy of their preference. But the success of the MONTHLY MAGAZINE has so multiplied candidates for public favour, that we find it as difficult to take even a glance at the whole, as our correspondents find it to discriminate among their pretensions. At the same time, as the parent of the entire brood, we feel a little jealous of preferences given to others, who have little recommendation but their mere juvenility, and the confident assurance with which they obtrude their imitative powers on the world. Ours may be the conceit of age; but we confess we see little to covet in the pages of any of these competitors; indeed, we earnestly invite comparisons, and we will abandon all our claims, and all our judgment founded on 25 years' experience in such matters, if every 16 of our pages are not found to contain more original, useful, and generally interesting matter than all the Miscellanies of the same month taken together. We say this in justice to ourselves; and we say it confidently, to protect ourselves against the chicanery of trade, and the meretricious glare of the columns of advertisements which fill the newspapers in regard to works whose only recommendation is their coarse imitation of this Miscellany in its mechanical structure.

Letters from Madrid, and the continuation of the Sketches in France in our next. The Review of Music and the Drama, and Westminster Abbey, are deferred, to make room for the List of the New Parliament.

THE

MONTHLY MAGAZINE.

No. 340.]

JUNE 1, 1820.

[5 of Vol. 49.

If any one enquire in regard to the public feelings which guide the Conductor of this Miscellany, he replies, that in Politics, he is an immovable friend to the principles of civil liberty, and of a benevolent administration of government; and is of the party of the Tories, the Whigs, and the Radical Reformers, as far as they are friends to the same principles and practices; that in matters of Religion, acting in the spirit of Christianity, he maintains perfect liberty of conscience, and is desirous of living in mutual charity with every sect of Christians;-and that, in Philosophy, he prefers the useful to the speculative, constantly rejecting doctrines which have no better foundation than the authority of respected names, and admitting the assumption of no causes which are not equal and analogous to the effects.

ORIGINAL COMMUNICATIONS.

For the Monthly Magazine. OBSERVATIONS on the STATE of RELIGION and LITERATURE in SPAIN, made during a Journey through the Peninsula in 1819.

Tantillou's calculations, two hun

HERE are in Spain, according to

dred thousand ecclesiastics. They possess immense revenues and an incalculable influence over the mass of the people; though it is certain that influence is diminishing, notwithstanding the countenance and co-operation of a government deeply interested in preserving their authority.

It would be great injustice to the regular clergy of Spain to class them with the immense hordes of monks and friars, scattered over the face of the Reninsula, some possessing rich and well-stored convents, large estates, and accumulating wealth, and others (the mendicant orders) who prey more directly on the labours of the poor, and compel the industrious to administer to their holy, uninterrupted laziness. The former, though, doubtless, by far too numerous, are for the most part intelligent and humane; dispensing benevolence and consolation in their respective parishes; friendly, in many instances, to liberty, and devoted to literature. The latter, with few, but striking exceptions, are unmanageable masses of ignorance and indolence. They live (as one of the Spanish poets says) in a state of sensual enjoyment between the organ-loft and the refectory, to which all other enjoyment is but purgatory; the link which should connect them with the common weal for ever broken; the ties of family and friend dissolved; their authority founded on the barbarism and degradation of the people, they are interested in stemming the torrent of improvement in knowledge and liberty, which must in the end inevitably sweep away these "cumberers of the soil."

MONTHLY MAG. No. 340.

No

society in which the sound principles
of policy are at all understood, would
consent to maintain a numerous body
of idle, unproductive, useless members,
in opulence and luxury, (at the ex-
pense of the active and the laborious,)
merely because they had chosen to de-
corate themselves with peculiar insig-
nia-to let their beards grow, or to
shave their heads; and though the
progress of civilization in Spain has
been greatly retarded, or rather it has
been compelled to retrograde under the
present system of despotism, yet, that
great advances have been made since
the beginning of the late revolution, is
happily too obvious to be denied.

That revolution, in fact, has pro-
duced, and will continue to produce, a
very favourable influence on the eccle-
siastical government of Spain. Leav-
ing out of consideration the immense
number of priests and friars who pe-
rished during the atrocious invasion
of their country, the destruction of
convents, the alienation of church pro-
perty, and the not unfrequent aban-
donment of the religious vow, unno-
ticed amidst the confusion and cala-
mities of active war, more silent, but
more extensive changes have been go-
ing on. The Cortes, when they decreed
that no Noviciates should be allowed
to enrol themselves, gave a death-blow
to the monastic influence, and since
the re-establishment of the ancient des-
potism, the chasm left by this want of
supply has not been filled up, nor is
likely to be; for the greater part of
the convents (except those very richly
endowed) complain that few candidates
propose themselves, except from the
lower classes of society, who are not
likely to maintain the credit, or add
to the influence of the order. Exam-
ples are now extremely rare of men of
family and fortune presenting them-
selves to be received within the clois-
ters, and offering all their wealth and
power

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power as the price of their admission. to the most unrestrained enjoyment.
Another circumstance, the consequence
of the revolution, has tended greatly to
lessen the influence of the regular
clergy, where it is most desirable it
should be lessened, among the lower
classes. Driven from their cells by
the bayonets of enemies, or obliged

to desert them that their convents might become hospitals for their sick and wounded friends, they were compelled to mingle with the mass of the people. To know them better was to esteem them less, and the mist of veneration with which popular prejudice had so long surrounded them, was dispersed, when they became divested of every outward distinction, and exhibited the same follies and frailties as their fellow-men. He who, in the imposing procession, or at the illumined altar, appeared a saint or a prophet, was little, was nothing, when mingling in the common relations of life he stood unveiled before his undazzled observers. For the first time it was discovered that the monks were not absolutely necessary for the preservation of religion. Masses were celebrated as before the host paraded the streets with its accustomed pomp and solemnity: the interesting ceremonials which accompany the entrance and the exit of alhuman being in this valley of vicissitude, were all conducted with their wonted regularity. Still less were they wanted to implore the blessing of Heaven on the labours of the husbandman, whose fruits grew and were gathered in with unvarying abundance. Without them the country was freed from the ignoble and degrading yoke of the usurper, while success and martial glory crowned the arms of their military companions, (the British,) who cared little for "all the trumpery" of "friars white, black, or grey," and if the contagion of their contempt did not reach their Catholic friends, they lessened, at least, the respect with which the inmates of the convent had been so long regarded.

But in anticipating a period in which the Spaniard shall be released from monkish influence, it must not be forgotten how interwoven is that influence with his most delightful recollections and associations. His festivities, his romerias, his rural pastimes, are all connected with, and dependent on, the annual return of some saint's-day, in honour of which he gives himself up

A mass is with him the introductory scene to every species of gaiety, and a procession of monks and friars forms a part of every picture on which his memory most delights to dwell.—And a similar, though perhaps, a stronger impression is created on his mind by the enthusiastic "love of song," so universal in Spain. He lives and breathes in a land of poetry and fiction: he listens with ever-glowing rapture to the romanceros, who celebrate the feats of his heroes, and surround his monks and hermits with all the glories of saints and angels: he hears of their mighty works, their sufferings, their martyrdom; and the tale, decorated with the charms of verse, is dearer to them than the best of holy writ. The peculiar favourites of the spotless Virgin, their words fall on his ear like the voice of an oracle, their deeds have the solemn sanction of marvellous miracles. To them he owes that his country is the special charge of the queen of angels, the mother of God; and in every convent he sees the records of the wondrous interpositions of heaven, which has so often availed itself of the agency of the sainted inmates, while every altar is adorned with the grateful offerings of devout worshippers, miraculously restored to health or preserved from danger. He feels himself the most privileged among the faithful. On him "our Lady of Protection" (del Amparo) smiles; to him the Virgin of Carmen bows her gracious head. In his eye ten thousand rays of glory encircle the brow of his patron-saint, the fancied tones of whose voice support, assure, and encourage him: he believes that his scapulary (blessed by a Carmelite friar) secures him from every evil; his house is adorned with the pope's bull of indulgences-a vessel of holy water is suspended over his bed, and what more can he want, what danger can approach him? His mind is one mass of undistinguishing, confiding, comforting faith. That faith is his religion, his Christianity! How difficult will it be to separate the evil from the good, if, indeed, they can be separated! What a fortress must be overthrown before truth and reason can advance a single step! What delightful visions must be forgotten, what animating recollections, what transporting hopes! Have we a right to rouse him from these

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blessed delusions? This is indeed the
ignorance that is bliss. Is it not folly
to wish him wise?

But, alas! this is only one side of
the picture! for, however soothing,
however charming the contemplation
of contented ignorance may be to the
imagination, in the eye of reason the
moral influence of such a system is
baneful in the extreme. All error is
evil; and the error which substitutes
the external forms of worship for its
internal influence on the heart, is a
colossal evil. Here we have a religion,
if such it may be called, that is purely
ceremonial. Its duties are not dis-
charged in the daily walk of life, not
by the cultivation of pure and pious
and benevolent affections, but by at-
tending masses, by reciting Paternos-
ters and Ave Marias, by pecuniary of-
ferings for souls in purgatory, and by a
thousand childish observances, which
affect remotely, if they affect at all, the
conduct and the character. The Spa-
niard attends his parish church to hear
a service in an unknown tongue; he
bends his knees and beats his bosom at
certain sounds familiar to his ear, but
not to his sense; he confesses and com-
municates with undeviating regularity;
and sometimes, perhaps, he listens to a
sermon in the eloquent style and beau-
tiful language of his country, not, in-
deed, instructing him in the moral
claims of his religion, but celebrating
the virtues and recounting the miracles
of some saint or martyr to whom the
day is dedicated. He reads his reli-
gious duties, not in a Bible, but an Al-
manack; and his Almanack is but a
sort of Christian mythology. His saints
are more numerous than the deities of
the pantheon; and, to say the truth,
there are many of them little better
than these.

He is told, however, that his country exhibits the proudest triumphs of orthodox Christianity. Schism and heresy have been scattered, or at least silenced and if in Spain the eye is constantly attracted, and the heart distressed, by objects of unalleviated human misery; if the hospitals are either wholly unprotected, or abandoned to the care of the venal and the vile; if the prisons are crowded with a promiscuous mass of innocence and guilt in all its shades and shapes of enormity-what does it matter? Spain, Catholic Spain, has preserved her faith unadulterated and unchanged, and her priests assure us that an error in creed

is far more dangerous (or to use their
own mild language), far more dam-
nable, than a multitude of errors in
conduct. A depraved heart may be
forgiven, but not an erring head. This
is, in fact, the fatal principle, whose
poison spreads through this strongly-
cemented system.
To this we may

attribute its absurdities, its, errors, its
crimes. This has created Dominicks
and Torquemadas.

In a word, intolerance, in its widest and worst extent, is the foundation on which the whole of the Spanish ecclesiastical edifice rests. It has been called the main pillar of the constitution, and is so inwrought with the habits and prejudices of the nation, that the Cortes, with all their general liberality, dared not allow the profession of any other religion than the "Catolica Apostolica Romana unica Verdadera." The cry of innovation there, as elsewhere, became a dreadful weapon in the hands of those who profess to believe that errors become sanctified by age. Too true it is, that if long usage can sanction wrong, persecution might find its justification in every page of Spanish history, from the time when Recaredo, the gothic monarch, abandoned his Arian principles (with the almost solitary exception of the tolerant and ill-treated Witiza). Long, long before the Inquisition had erected its frightful pretensions into a system, or armed itself with its bloody sword, its spirit was abroad and active. Thousands and tens of thousands of Jews and Moors had been its victims, and its founders did no more than obtain a regal or a papal licence, for the murders which would otherwise have been probably committed by a barbarous and frenzied mob, excited by incendiary monks and friars.

The Inquisition has, no doubt, been greatly humanized by the progress of time; as, in order to maintain its influence in these more enlightened and inquiring days, it has availed itself of men of superior talent, these have softened the asperity, or controlled the malignity and petty tyranny of its inferior agents. Its vigilance and its persecutions, are, indeed, continually at work, yet, I believe its flames will never again be lighted. Its greatest zeal is now directed against Freemasons, of whom immense numbers occupy its prisons and dungeons. I have conversed with many who have been incarcerated

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