from the Irish press; for I do not recollect any trace of it in our bibliographical records. It exists not, as I have ascertained by inquiry, in the royal collection of Wirtenberg, nor in the library of the Duke of Sussex; and the former, it is well known, is the largest respository of the sacred code in existence. (See Bibliotheca Würtenburgensium Ducis,) (grandfather of the reigning monarch,) olim Lorkiana, auctore I. G. Aldero, Hamb. 1787, 4to. and Allgemeines Bibliographisches Lexicon, Leipsic 1821-1830; as also Dr. Dibdin's Tour, iii. 21. Of the impression of the English Liturgy, there can, however, be no reasonable doubt, authenticated as it is by Sir James Ware. I know not whether the library of our University preserves a copy of it; for the treasures of that establishment, like the cryptic receptacles of the East, described by the late accomplished Colonel Tod,* remain almost entombed, certainly unrevealed, though supposed to be most precious"Eo ipso præfulgebant, quia non visebantur." (Tacit. Annal. iii. 76.)

As for the alleged Bible of 1551, if we could discover any vestige of it, to support the statement of the Dublin Annalists, its extinction might, naturally enough, be imputed to the intolerant spirit of the succeeding reign; for, similarly, no complete copy appears to exist of the first English Bible printed, it is supposed, at Zurich, in 1535, so successful had been Henry VIII. in suppressing it; and Mary, on the death of Edward, may be presumed not more indulgent in regard of the first Irish edition. Copies, how. ever, of other editions printed in London, previous to her reign, are not so rare as to indicate any strenuous efforts on her part for their destruction; and, however sanguinary her rule was in England, it is an incontestible fact, that the persecution in blood did not extend to Ireland. On the contrary, Sir James Ware, whose assertion is unquestioned, states, anno 1554, page 135, that "several of the Protestants of England fled over to Ireland by reason of Queen Mary having begun to prosecute (sic) them for their religion, viz. John Hervey, Abel Ellis,

John Edmonds, and Henry Hugh, who, bringing over their goods and chattels, lived in Dublin, and became citizens of this city," &c. Mosheim, (vol. iv. p. 137,) on narrating the introduction of the Reformation into Ireland, says, that "Mary pursued with fire and sword the promoters of a pure and rational religion;" but his translator, Dr. Maclean, is here obliged to interpose, and to acknowledge "that, however cruel Mary's designs may have been, they were not carried into execution." This he accounts for by the story, of long posterior fabrication, according to which the commission of blood entrusted to Dr. Cole was purloined from his cloakbag by his hostess at Chester, and a pack of cards substituted, but which now, like the birth of the Pretender, and other pious frauds imposed on popular credulity at all times and by all parties, is held as wholly unworthy of belief.

"Quâ re, religio pedibus subjectaObteritur." LUCRET. i. 79.

See Leland's Ireland, ii. p. 213, for this absurd invention; and I may add, that Mr. Fraser Tytler's late history of Edward and Mary throws rather a new light on these sovereigns and their counsellors; nor is a contemporaneous narrative (also valuable for its rarity) without interest-" Historia delle cose occorse nel regno d' Inghilterra dopo la morte de Odoardo VI." (Nell' Academia Venetiana, 1558.) My copy of this volume, an Aldine production, (see Renouard, Annales des Aldes,) had the additional advantage of being 6. E Bibliothecâ Jacobi Aug. Thuani.”

In a letter from Archbishop Usher to Camden, dated in June 1618, will be found some curious particulars of the early Irish press,-a subject little investigated, though entitled to research. It is certain, however, that its first Latin fruit was Usher's quarto volume, Gotteschalchi, et Prædestinariæ Controversiæ ab eo motæ, Historia," printed in Dublin in 1632. This book, which is dedicated to John Gerard Vossius, whom the illustrious primate wished to bring over to Ire

GENT. MAG. VOL. XIII.

U

land, though with less success than attended Charles the Second's invitation to his son Isaac, was, indeed, rather late in this field of literature, to which the convulsed state of the island was so little favourable. But we know that, in the great Russian empire, no Latin classic issued from the press before 1762, when an edition of Cornelius Nepos was printed at Moscow, as we learn from Dr. Harwood (Classics, 1790); but even England has little cause of pride in that respect, for in the University of Oxford, so late as 1603, on the accession of James to the throne, no Hebrew types were to be found, (Biblioth. Sussex. i. 79,) when the Hebrew professor wished to commemorate that event.

According to Ames and Herbert, the city of Waterford lays claim to some early essays of the great art; but the first mention discoverable of it in Smith's history of that city is under the date of 1646, when Thomas Bourke printed a scandalous re

monstrance of the Confederate Papists, with his Majesty's (Charles I.) arms affixed thereon.' The topographer does not seem aware that this presumptuous act, as he viewed it, was the authorised result of his Majesty's secret commission to Lord Glamorgan, which has been the source of so much controversy, from the days of Clarendon and Birch to those of Brodie, Lingard, Heywood, and Rose. Dr. Lingard's note B. to volume X. of his History, offers, I conceive, a most impartial review of this question,-one

so influential in its decision on the character of the unhappy monarch.

The absence in Dr. Lingard's work of a continuous or heading chronology, I may here take occasion to remark, causes no considerable inconvenience to the reader. I can also, I think, trace to this defect an error in M. de Beaumont's recent publication, "L'Irlande, Sociale, Politique et Religieuse,' "where, (tome ii. 3eme partie, p. 181, 189,) in proof of the delay of intercourse in former days, compared with its present facilities, he quotes he reverend historian's statement of the confirmation of the marriage of Henry VIII. with Anne Boleyn, by the Irish Parliament, one day, and its annulment the next, on the arrival of a

tardy courier, referring to Lingard, vol. vi. chap. v. and adding the date 1525. The anachronism struck me, as I knew that the event occurred in 1536, not 1525; but, on inspection of the original, I saw that it proceeded from the close position of two dates in the margin, which appeared to embrace the same subject, though quite different in their purpose; and M. de Beaumont took that of 1525 for the other, which immediately followed, of 1536. Had there been a heading datation, this could hardly have happened; for to that his eye would have been more safely and naturally directed. I know not whether the translator saw the error.

The lines of Lopez de Vega on the marriage of Henry and Anne, will show how that occurrence was con

templated by that most prolific of dramatists, but who had then renounced the stage and taken orders, which, however, did not render him less

caustic

One of the most important works of the sixteenth century was, doubtless, the convocation of the Council of Trent; and Mr. Hallam, accordingly, dwells with suitable detail on its acts and consequences. With a knowledge, also, and impartiality, far superior to most of our English writers, he is in general careful to separate the obligatory canons of doctrine from the local regulations of discipline. I cannot, however, include in that praise the following paragraph, which would seem to imply a defeasance of Catholic assent to the decisions of that assembly, even in articles of faith, which, it would be inferred, were rather passively acquiesced in than declaredly recognised, more especially in France. His words (vol. ii. p. 99,) are

"There is some difficulty in proving for the Council of Trent, that universality to which its adherents attach infallible authority. And this was not held to be a matter of course by the great European powers. Even in France the Tridentine decrees have not been formally received, though the Gallican church has never called any of them in question. The Emperor Ferdinand hesitated about acknowledging the decrees of a council, which had at least failed in the object, for which it was professedly summoned, the conciliation of all parties to the church. For we find that even after its close he referred the chief points in controversy to George Cassander, a German theologian of very moderate sentiments and temper."

Here our author obviously confounds the civil and spiritual jurisdictions; for the exceptions to the recognition of the Council adverted to by him, exclusively referred to points of discipline which were supposed to encroach on the royal prerogative or local immunities, and never, as I shall have little difficulty in evincing, to rules of faith, over which the civil power could exercise no controul. In France and Hungary, it is true, that no royal

edict, as in Spain, and most other Catholic territories, enjoined the reception of the Council; but the ecclecitly, there as elsewhere, on every siastical body universally and explicompetent occasion, recorded their

unreserved submission to the decision of the Council in matters of faith. Never, in a single instance, have the assembled clergy in any part of the Catholic world demurred to these authoritative decrees, a departure or dissent from which would necessarily involve a lapse into schism, and a severance of the Catholic unity. They would, in a word, cease to be Catholics.

But, however desirable, or solicited, for political effect and ostensible uniformity by the Popes, the professed acceptance and formal promulgation of the articles of faith by the civil authorities was, of course, wholly unnecessary; while in England, where the church was national and circumscribed within its insular bounds, the creed was appropriately regulated by local and legislative enactments, without that indispensable association of faith implied in the claim of catholicity :

The exclusive jurisdiction of the church to define the tenets of faith has been invariably acknowledged by Catholic sovereigns, and by none more unequivocally or frequently than by those of France,-the eldest sons of the Church,-whose opposition has ever been confined to certain articles of discipline in the Tridentine regulations, at variance with the privileges secured to them by the Concordat of 1517, between Leo X. and Francis the First, or with other long-exercised rights, which these regulations made, in their conception, more directly submissive to papal power. Thus, in March 1563, when the Council was drawing to its close, the Queen Regent, Catharine of Medicis, and Council of State, having taken into consideration the proceedings of the Council of Trent, declared-" que quant à la doctrine, ils n'y vouloient toucher, et

.....

Itaque (mandatum nobis est,) a vobis, P. S. petere, ut nihil contra

suam (regiam) auctoritatem Gallicanæque Ecclesiæ libertatem decernatis." And, in the "Lettre du Roy,

escrite aux Ambassadeurs à Trente sur l'opposition qu'ils avoient formée au Concile," dated the ninth of November 1563, only a few days before the dissolution of the Assembly, not the remotest objection to the dogmas of faith transpires; and the protest solely claims the preservation of the royal droicts, usages, priviléges, et ceux de l'Eglise Gallicane.

In 1579, the Ordonnances de Blois drew a similar line of demarcation between the imperative dogmas of belief and the flexible points of discipline, in the reception of the Council; and when Gregory the Thirteenth urged on Henry the Third its formal promulgation, the answer was, that it was quite superorogatory: "qu'il ne falloit point de publication pour ce qui étoit de foy, car c'étoit chose gardée dans son royaume." He made a similar reply to the pressing instances of the convocation of the clergy, held the same year at Melun, "inasmuch as the Council of Trent had only affirmed the long-established doctrine of the church." So even Perè le Courayer, the translator of Sarpi's History of the Council of Trent, and inheritor of his spirit, is obliged to acknowledge in his "Discours sur la reception du Councile de Trente," § 11-appended to the second edition of his translation (Amst. 1758,) although he complacently dwells on Henry's Edit de pacification, in which, with a view to conciliate the Huguenots, a desire is expressed for a new, legitimate, and free council, to unite all his subjects to the Catholic church. See, also, the adverse arguments of Mosheim and his translator. Hist. Cent. XVI. Sect. II.

It would be quite easy to pursue this deduction of proof, and shew, that the objection in France to the mandatory reception of the Council solely applied to the article of discipline, leaving those of faith in plenitude of authority, and in no wise impairing the fact of universal submission obtained for them in the church. The same distinction may, I think, be authorizedly extended to the doctrinal or moral, and the historical and physical enunciations, of the Bible itself,-the

one, of imperative belief and indispensable observance; the other, of larger interpretation and permissive inquiry. The ante and post-diluvian chronology, so dissentient in the Hebrew and the Septuagint-the weeks of Daniel, or the Apocalyptic number (those mysteries of computation which have defied at once and humiliated the genius of Newton), and the Deluge in physical operation, have ever been subjects of independent discussion; but it is only within the circle of our own times, that any attempt could be safely made to reconcile the discoveries of science with the literal text of Scripture in the opening chapter of Genesis. The alleged sufferings, indeed, of Galileo have, by recent elucidation, been reduced to the measure of truth, which assuredly did not exceed what an Oxford professor, at that period, would have encountered, had he, like Dr. Buckland, ventured to extend the week assigned for the creation to an interminable space, so as to meet the most comprehensive geological hypothesis. Nor would the great discoverer be now more exposed to persecution, I confidently assert, in his native Florence, than our learned countryman has been in England, for seeking in the sacred volume, not schemes of physics, or systems of astronomy, but the manifestation of the Divine Will in the records of his chosen people,-the prophecies that announced, and the blessings that signalized, the advent of the Son of Man, who came to save what was lost (St. Luke, xix. 10.), the examples of his life, the redemption of his death, and the precepts of his instruction. But Dr. Buckland's exposition of his sentiments will be best viewed in his luminous publication

Geology and Mineralogy considered with reference to Natural Theology" (Vol. i. ch. 2.)

The French lawyers demurred to twenty-three points of the Tridentine discipline, which are discussed by De Thou, (Thuani Hist. lib. 105,) and the two Pasquiers (Stephen and Nicholas) were most marked in their opposition-"Ceux qui poursuivent la vérification de ce Concile," said the son,