Of this celebrated man, and his negotiations with Henry, much original information will be found in Mr. Turner's volume. If the humiliation of the aspiring popedom has been a blessing to mankind, it is to Charles V. and to the duke of Bourbon as his general, far more than either to Luther, to Henry, or to Anne Boleyn, that the world are indebted, and to whom we should be grateful for that benefit. They broke down its military strength, at the critical moment when reason was attacking it; and never recovering its temporal independence, it has never been able to re-organize its mental domination, though it may be now attempting it.' None of Henry's acts have been usually considered as ex- posing him to more lasting execration than the deaths of Fisher and More. It has been taken for granted, that their execution was simply the result of their refusal to take the oath of supremacy. But as this had not been made high treason by the statute, it could not alone have made them liable to the loss of life; and it should seem that the supposition has originated in the fact, that submission in this point was made the condition of pardon. Unfortunately, the official documents relating to their trial have disappeared, and we are left to inference and collateral evidence in this important inquiry. Certainly it was not on this charge only that they were condemned treason and conspiracy were imputed. Pole himself states, that Sir Thomas More was arraigned for high treason,' and on this charge his jury found him guilty. So far was Henry from urging these severities, that, when certain Carthusian monks were convicted of treason, he sent again and again to press upon them the alternative of mercy, and so far they may be said to have been martyrs-martyrs of the Pope's supremacy. Lord Herbert expressly states, that this piece of justice troubled the king; he would have been glad not to be compelled to such violent ' courses.' A singularly able argument on this subject, by Mr. Turner, forms the subject of a note, of which we regret that the length precludes the insertion here. It dwells chiefly on the distinction between speculative opinions in quiet times, and the advocacy of inflammatory sentiments at a season when a collision of parties was endangering the throne. Taking the execution of Fisher and More in its worst aspect, it was a sacrifice to political expediency;-a deed criminal enough in this view, but of far less atrocity than would be its character, had it been, as it is usually represented, a wanton, reckless murder of two blameless individuals on a point of tyrannical usurpation. It would gratify us much to give large extracts from the able investigation of Henry's character which forms the subject of Mr. Turner's concluding chapter; but we must abstain. A comparatively short extract may suffice to shew the vigorous discrimination which forms its specific character. No execution occurred until conspiracy and rebellion were afloat; until disaffection was publicly taught and propagated; until the deposition or coercion of the king, and the overthrow of his government were meditated and attempted. It was after a mortal battle between him and the pope had begun, that the executions took place. This contest was a contest of life or death. The papal excommunication of Henry shews its real character. The utmost violence was enforced against him, and his subjects were made to be his treasonable assailants. It was therefore a civil war, wilfully waged by those who were punished, on behalf and by the excitement of a foreign pope, against their king, which on their part took the shape of unceasing conspiracy, and on his side that of arrest, arraignment, trial, sentence, and unsparing execution. It was in 1535 that the legal severities became adopted, as the determined principle of the endangered government; and an intelligent foreigner at that time imputes their application by a prince, who, until that time, had been so clement and liberal as Henry, to his irritation at the menaces and official thunders of the vindictive pope. But the resolute execution of Bishop Fisher and Sir Thomas More, evincing that the king was not to be intimidated, and deterring many who had begun to be active, the Vatican hastened to new revenge; and issued that infuriating excommunication which commanded trea son, rebellion, invasion, robbery, and murder, in order to throw down Henry. From that time, as the preceding history has exhibited, Pole, the pontiff, the emperor, the monks and friars of the country, and the discontented part of the inferior clergy, sought to inflame the nation against the king; and assailed him with continual slander, invective, plots, conspiracies, insurrections, menace of foreign attack, and schemes of personal assassination, with a mischievous and implacable pertinacity; which, although failing to accomplish his destruction or to overturn his throne, yet harassed him with continual alarm, uncertainty, agitation, suspicion, irritability, and indignation. Under these circumstances, the sanguinary executions were resolved upon by his cabinet and by himself, not as matters of his personal taste, but as the state policy most proper to be adopted in that perilous crisis. One of his leading ministers mentions them as such, and blames the French king, because, with a cooler judgement, from not being in a similar emergency, he had recommended exile as a preferable punishment.' We must dismiss the remaining part of our task very summarily. We have copied the title of Dr. Lingard's fifth volume; but we have no inclination to follow him through the evasions and discolorations which mark his representations of Mary and Elizabeth. The former, bigoted and disgusting as she was, comes from his plastic hand a very amiable sort of monster; and his portrait of the latter is worked up to a felicitons exhi bition of nearly all that is hateful and contemptible in female and regal character. Verily, good doctor, this is overdoing matters somewhat clumsily! We might be willing to make due allowance for errors on both sides among historians; but, when a Romish priest requires us to take it on his credit, aided by that of the notorious Persons, that Gardiner was tenderharted and myld, we are the less disposed to accept his estimate of other characters-to think lightly of Walsingham and the Cecils, and to put our trust in Reginald Pole. Dr. L.'s narrative is vulnerable in almost every page, but we have neither space nor opportunity for the extensive collation of documents which would be requisite for the complete exposure of his delinquencies. There is, however, one of his systematic pleas, that may be worth a sentence or two of comment. Whenever he has to bring forward the persecutions so actively urged on by the papists, he invariably takes care to refer to similar excesses on the part of the Reformers, and to represent such practices as the error of the age. Suppose it was, on whom does the infamy rest, but on those whose part it was to have enlightened the world as to the true character of Christianity? For centuries, the Romanists had been the teachers, and they had availed themselves of their vantage ground to teach bloody 'instructions.' Persecution with them was a system, not a casualty. The Inquisition, the extirpation of the Albigenses, the St. Barthelemi, the Dragonades, were the effects of an exterminating policy, which to palliate is to share. As to the charge against the Reformers, we refer our readers to the extract given in an earlier part of this article, from Mr. Turner's preface, with the remark, that, so far as our researches have extended, they fully sustain his assertions. In a recent number of the Edinburgh Review, (June 1826,) the writer of a very able article had taken for his text that part of The following epitaph on this tender-hearted priest, by the father of Sir John Harrington, written while he lay in the tower, will serve as an à propos illustration of Dr. Lingard's fidelity. We transcribe it from Art. X. in the Transactions of the R. S. of Literature, referred to in a preceding article. Here lye the bones of busy Gardiner dead, That in five years spoil'd more good laws and lore, The Queen beguild, the Lords like lyme-hounds led, Dr. Lingard's eighth volume (of the 8vo. edition) which relates the massacre of the St. Bartholomew, and, after a thorough and masterly examination, had shewn the Doctor's representation to exhibit many plain indications of carelessness and haste, of borrowed learning, and inexcusable indifference to 'historical accuracy.' The Reviewer had evidently access to the most valuable publications on the subject, and had availed himself of his advantages with consummate ability. It will not be necessary for us to retail the contents of an article that we trust most of our readers have had opportunity to examine; it will be enough if we advert to it in connexion with a few specimens of Dr. Lingard's elaborate but ineffective reply. He begins by complaining, that there is something extraordinary in the choice made by the Reviewer,' of a particular portion of the great work for specific criticism. Assuredly, there is something still more extraordinary in the complant. The writer had previously made proof of Dr. L.'s want of candour and fidelity in his chronicles of the Anglo-Saxon period, and, anxious to avoid intermeddling with the disputes between the ⚫ Roman and the Anglican Churches,' fixed upon the St. Bartholomew as a fair and manageable subject for minute investigation. He might have taken a different course, certainly, but we are not aware that he could have chosen one more equitable and effective. Dr. Lingard would have consulted his own dignity of character more wisely, if he had abstained both from this piece of petulance, and from the absurd and impotent menace which follows it. It is marvellous that, when reminding the Reviewer that it is a dangerous experiment to sport 'with the public credulity,' it did not occur to him, that he was publishing a bitter epigram on himself. We wish that we had room for a complete exhibition of the astonishing negligence or intrepidity with which the Dr. has committed himself in this pamphlet. His very first specific charge is in the face of evidence. Imputing to the Reviewer misquotation, he states the matter as follows. In this passage and in the two following pages, the Reviewer professes thrice to quote my very words, and thrice substitutes in their place words of his own. I said that I had compared "the most authentic documents;" he makes me say that I compared the "original documents."" Will it be believed that, notwithstanding the positiveness of this assertion, it has not the slightest foundation in fact? The Reviewer does not, in the passage in question, profess to quote the very words of Dr. Lingard; and where he has, in the very same page, professed to quote them, he has done it with entire correctness. Had only one instance of this kind occur red, it might have been passed over as an awkward oversight; but, a few pages onward, we have another mistatement of precisely the same kind. He (the Reviewer) cannot quote my words, "that the Protestant martyrologist procured lists of the names," without representing me as saying that the martyrologist" used uncommon industry, and took extraordinary pains, to procure such lists." But though I said it not, I have no doubt that extraordinary pains were taken.' It is only necessary to say in answer to Dr. Lingard, that the Reviewer has not represented him as using the words in question. He has cited him at length, with the exception of a short redundant phrase, and with scrupulous accuracy. In return, the Doctor has misquoted his critic. The latter, referring to the historian's statement which had just been correctly cited, speaks of it in terms strictly implying such reference, and not intelligible without it- such uncommon indus'try'-' such extraordinary pains.' Two instances of egregious error, are stated to have been errors of the press. In another case, Dr. L. endeavours to escape from the ridicule due to a most absurd expression, by an innocent I never thought.' That part of his defence which relates to facts, appears to us extremely weak and evasive; and the result of all the examination that we have been able to bestow upon his writings, is, that he is both superficial and unfaithful; two qualities which leave him without claim to any other credit than such as may be due to a spirited, though by no means a finished, writer. Art. VI. 1. A Popular Introduction to the Study of the Holy Scriptures, for the Use of English Readers. By William Carpenter. 8vo. pp. 656. Maps and Plates. Price 16s. London. 1826. 2. A Compendious Introduction to the Study of the Bible. By Thomas Hartwell Horne, M.A. Illustrated with Maps and other Engravings. Being an Analysis of "An Introduction to the Critical Study and Knowledge of the Holy Scriptures," in four Volumes. By the same Author. 12mo. pp. 526. London. 1827. WE find ourselves called upon, in noticing these publica tions, to advert to the very delicate subject of literary piracy. In the year 1818, Mr. Horne first published his Introduction to the Critical Study of the Scriptures, in 3 vols. Svo., which, in the subsequent editions, he extended to four yolumes. The work was reviewed in our Journal, on its first |