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destroys all perception of right and wrong, and leads to consequences of which Europe at this very hour presents a shocking and melancholy spectacle. Recent disclosures (the seal of secrecy, it is true, torn off by the undiscriminating hand of popular fury) have raised a violent suspicion in the breast of every thinking man, that the moral sanctions often lose their influence over Potentates, and that truth and plain-dealing are looked upon as things fitted only for the state and capacity of an inferior race of beings. May those who still wear their crowns take warning, and have wisdom enough to amend their ways, before they hear the fatal words of the Sovereign People c'est trop tard* ! and may the prophecy of Lamartine (the great republican poet) come to pass and be fulfilled in our day, that sympathies are to be the only treaties. of nations! That Baynbrigg could be the Legate of Harry the 8th and an honest man, is a proposition to which a reflecting mind does not readily assent. That he could be his minister at the Court of Julius the Second, the banyan of both in the Holy League, without being infected with the ambition of the one and the treachery of the other,

It is too late-the fatal words preceding Louis Philippe's downfall. Between the 24th February 1848 and 24th February 1849 there fell Louis Philippe, now at Claremont in England; Emperor of Austria at Prague in Bohemia; King of Bavaria in Baden; the Pope of Rome, and Grand Duke of Tuscany, both now at Mola di Gaeta in the Kingdom of Naples; and the King of Sardinia is now in Paris.

pre-supposes a greater store of credulity than has fallen to our lot. Indeed his letters show clearly that he had found in Rome, what Burke says Warren Hastings found in India, a geographical morality* :

"Can a man take fire in his bosom, and his clothes not be burned+ ?"

but we were not prepared for the enormities of this humble beedman, as evidenced by the letter above referred to. A more deliberate conspiracy, a more wicked lie, more villany, more treachery than what is there coolly proposed by the Cardinal to his own Sovereign, is not to be found in history. At his sudden fall, so soon alas! at hand, one cannot help exclaiming with the Roman Poet

"Sæpe Diespater

Neglectus incesto addidit integrum,

Raro antecedentem scelestum

Deseruit pede pæna claudo."

In one part of it he tells his Sovereign, that Cardinal Sinogallen was well disposed towards him, and was willing to let him have his Breve (which evidently means the title of Most Christian King annexed to the Crown of France), but that it could not be granted, unless the three should conspire to

*See Original Letters to Henry VIII. and Wolsey in MSS. Cotton Vitellius, B. ii.

+ Prov.

tell Leo X. that it was made out before Julius' death; and to ease Sinogallen's conscience for so base a lie, which St. Praxis in words admits it to be, he earnestly recommends some little sop of title or buona mano to be thrown to him. "He (Sinogallen) praithe your Grace to lett itt be noo otherwise shewide butt that ye hade the said Breve in your handes in Pope July's Days, he wolde nott that the Pope's Holiness that nowe is shulde in ony maner knowe the contrary. ** After receipt of the said Breve to yeve unto hym Promotion more or lesse in recompense of his trewe and faithful demenor." Whether Leo X. discovered this vile plot, or the poisoned chalice prevented its consummation does not appear; perhaps the latter, for the conspiracy took place in the Autumn of 1513, and in the following year, namely, on the 14th July 1514 Cardinal St. Praxis was poisoned by his own steward, an Italian Priest, of the name of Rinaldus di Modena, out of revenge for a blow given him by his master, as the culprit declared on the scaffold*. Some allege that this took place at Rohan in France, but, if Godwin and Rymer are to be relied on, there can be no doubt but that it was at Rome and not at Rohan, that he thus fell "a victim to the ungoverned violence of his tempert." "Here something (says

*See a curious letter about this in Fiddes' Life of Cardinal Wolsey, App. 253.

See Letter of Cardinal di Medici announcing his death. Rymer's Fod. 14th July 1514.

Fuller) may be pleaded for this Cardinal out of the Old; sure I am more must be pleaded against him out of the New Testament, if the places be paralleled.

A servant will not be corrected by words, &c. Prov. xxix. 19.

A Bishop must be no striker. 1 Tim. iii. 3.

But grant him greatly faulty, it were uncharitable in us to beat his memory with more stripes who did suffer so much for his own indiscretion."

He was buried in the English Church at Rome, where there is a monument with the following Inscription:

D. O. M. CHO. ARCHIEP. EBORACEN. S

PRAXED, PRESB, CARDINALI ANGLIE A JULIO II.
PONT. MAX, OB EGREGIAM OPERAM S. R. E.
PRÆSTITAM DUM SUI REGIS LEGATUS ESSET
ASSUMPTO. QUAM MOX ET DOMI ET
FORIS CASTRIS PONTIFICIIS PRÆFECT
TUTATUS EST. OBIIT PRID, ID. JUL,
A, SAL M.DXIIII*.

* See Godwin.

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ARCHBISHOP OF DUBLIN, LORD CHANCELLOR OF IRELAND*.

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"I cannot help that, but if I changed my religion I am sure I kept true to my principle, which is to live and die Vicar of Bray."-ANON.

UGH CURWEN and Christopher Baynbrigg (Cardinal of St. Praxede) of all Westmorland-born men, have reached the highest pinnacles in Church and State; and yet (with pain we write it) of all the least worthy of our admiration or example. In truth, their very dignity is their own degradation, their glory, our shame.

Once upon a time, as common tradition hath it, a certain Divine had a cure of Souls somewhere in Berkshire, to wit, as the lawyers say, at Bray in the county aforesaid. This said Parson was a Papist under the sway of Harry the viiith; a Protestant under Edward vith, a Papist again under Philip and

* See Mant's Hist. of the Irish Church 237, and Appendix, (London 1840.) Murray's Ireland and her Church, (London 1845.) Cotton's Fast. Eccl. Hib. 1 Wood's Ath., Oxon 803.

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