Mariana, and after him Balmez (Catholicity and Protestantism Compared, vol. iv.) well point out the immense advantage arising from the recognition of ancient fundamental laws and civil and municipal rights which arose in the early Catholic ages of Europe, and which serve as landmarks to check the encroachments of the central power, and to mark its excesses, and also, from the existence of corporate bodies and orders of men whose action in resisting an unjust authority is at once stamped with that character of deliberation and unison which is necessary to give it legitimacy. Balmez also well points out that there was not in Catholic Europe in the middle ages such a thing as an absolute monarchy, unbounded by any laws; and that, as in Spain and other countries, the rights and privileges of the people, and the obligations of the Sovereign were well known and acknowledged, the former were clearly justified in maintaining those rights against the encroachments of their sovereigns, and he instances the conduct of those of Leon, Castile, and Gallicia. If, since that period, absolute monarchies have arisen in Europe, they are still bound by the laws of God and of natural justice, and by such fundamental laws as have been established in each country. We have thus far investigated the grounds of resistance to authority theoretically, under each of the two headsbad origin, and injustice of government, or, to use Suarez's words, tyranny quoad dominium and tyranny quoad regimen. Practically however these two questions. are constantly intermingled and connected, especially by the question of fundamental laws. There is hardly a government in Europe perfectly legitimate, and absolutely unfettered by any fundamental laws. There are few countries, to the government of which there are not two claimants. There is hardly a king who has not sworn to observe some constitution, or guarantee some rights to his subjects. Each case then of resistance to any existing government, however usurping or unjust, must remain an individual case of conscience to be decided on its own merits: the broad fact being clear, that revolt and revolution are as rarely justifiable, as they are almost invariably unhappy in their results. Almost all the solid freedom which exists in Europe, has been the result of patient, persevering, but peaceful struggles with existing governments; sweeping revolutions have rarely established a permanent free government; and the wisest and best of those who have resisted existing tyrannies, have always sought to fall back on antecedent government, and acknowledged principles to be found in the constitution of their country; and thus avoid that state of chaos which results, as in the first French Revolution, from the total destruction of all existing government. In weighing the merits of each case of resistance, we perceive, from what has been stated, that the question of its probable success is a main element in judging of its lawfulness, not that success justifies a bad cause: but that none are justified in exposing a nation to the perils of a revolution, and the destruction of existing authority unless they can calculate on being able to substitute a better. Time was when Catholic Europe acknowledged in the Pope one supreme judge of such cases; when nations could appeal to him to decide that the tyranny of their rulers was unbearable; as each man now must in similar cases decide in his own conscience, under the direction of the best confessor he can find. And even in a human point of view, such a tribunal of appeal was of immense advantage: the weight of a pontiff's censure was such, that not unfrequently tyrants humbled themselves before it: and if the people were compelled to open resistance, they were united, authorised and fortified by such a decision, in a way not otherwise attainable. Now men, in the most weighty questions of public morals are all at sea and the old landmarks and fixed principles are forgotten: we have endeavoured in this brief sketch, to bring before the Catholics of these countries the opinions of the great teachers of old; leaving the application to their own judgment. As we stated in the commencement, we have investigated the question of government and resistance, without any reference to the Papal government. Our own opinion however as to the application of principles to it cannot be doubted. 1st. Its origin is acknowledged on all hands to have been legitimate. 2nd. It cannot, as our readers well know, be shown that the Pope has 1st. Violated any fundamental law of the kingdom; or 2nd. Been guilty of universal radical injus tice, such as would justify resistance by the body of his subjects. 3. Neither of the above defects, even if they existed, would justify a foreign invasion of his states. ART. VIII. Memoirs of the Most Rev. Oliver Plunket, Archbishop of Armagh, Primate of all Ireland, who suffered Death for the Catholic Faith in the year 1681. Compiled from Original Documents by the Rev. Francis Patrick Moran, D.D., Vice-Rector of the Irish College, Rome. Dublin: James Duffy. 1861. Tis not too much to say that these Memoirs of Oliver Plunket have proved an agreeable surprise even to those who are most familiar with the history of the Irish Church in the seventeenth century. The period to which they refer has heretofore been regarded as almost a complete blank, in which the chain of events was entirely lost. Dr. Moran has happily recovered most of the missing links, and his present volume has substantially restored the continuity of the history. It is true that the ten years immediately precedingfrom 1640 to 1650-have left some trace in our historical literature, although the works of that time are, almost without an exception, so directly and avowedly partisan in their character as to require to be read with the utmost caution. Some of the writers, as for example Borlase, are fiercely anti-Irish; others follow almost with equally velement partisanship, one or other of the various parties into which the Irish politics of the time were divided. Thus Carte is an unvarying apologist of Ormond. Belling, although a Catholic and an adherent of the Supreme Council, is quite as devoted to the interest of the Ormondists. Ponce is even more violent on the side of those who adhered to the nuncio Rinuccini. The nuncio himself, especially in his later correspondence, is a thorough partisan; and Father Peter Walsh, in that portion of his History of the Remonstrance which regards the Confederation, may be said to surpass them all in the coarse and sweeping cha racter of his denunciations of all whose views chance to differ from his own. But, with all their defects, the publications of that date, although perhaps no single one can be taken as a guide, supply a mass of facts from which at least to build up the skeleton of the history. But at this point all light disappears. From the date of the triumph of the parliamentary arms in Ireland all is void; nor in truth was it possible that it should have been otherwise. All those who could have chronicled the ecclesiastical occurrences of that terrible time had been cut off or driven into exile. The bishops of Ross, of Emly, and of Clogher, had fallen victims to their patriotism and their constancy in the profession of their faith. The rest had been forced into concealment or into exile. One prelate, who in happier circumstances, might have been a most accomplished historian of his time, and to whom even now we owe the most valuable of the few relics which have been preserved,-Nicholas French, Bishop of Ferns,—was a wanderer, poor, and borne down with age and infirmity, in the Low Countries. His brethren, for the most part, had taken refuge in the same kingdom, watching an opportunity of returning to their flocks. Some of them. had chosen France, Spain, or other more distant countries as their retreat; but with the exception of two or three who escaped the fury of the persecution solely through their obscurity, it may be said that the entire episcopate of Ireland was driven from the country during the dark and unhappy period which followed the Cromwellian occupation. * Even the most zealous and sanguine, therefore, of our antiquarians had hitherto looked upon the gap which exists in the annals of the Irish Church during the latter half of the seventeenth century as utterly irreparable. We recollect that, when it was announced, several years since, that a large collection of papers from the Roman archives relating to Ireland, had been made by the learned oratorian, Father Theiner, it was considered a matter of the deepest interest, that among these papers were found two letters of the martyr-primate Oliver Plunket. Now these letters had but little value for the general history, being written from the prison of Newgate; and were chiefly *See Supra, Vol. xviii. pp. 215 and following, notable as illustrating the personal character of the writer. Nor was there in the vast mass of papers anterior to the date of the arrest of the Primate, anything which could be really regarded as supplying materials for a connected record of the interval between that event and the death of Charles II. It is with no ordinary gratification, therefore, that we welcome a body of materials, so large, so important, so entirely new, and so completely beyond expectation, as those contained in Dr. Moran's volume. In the article referred to above, an opinion was very strongly expressed that whatever could be recovered of the history of our country since the Reformation, was to be looked for mainly at Rome, partly in the pontifical archives, partly in the private collections of those families-as the Barberini, the Chigi, and others-the members of which, from their official position either in the congregation of the Propaganda or in the nunciatures of France, of Spain, and above all, of the Low Countries, held such relations from time to time, with the Irish Church, as might lead to any expectation, however slight, that they could have been the depositaries of correspondence, of reports, or of other papers bearing upon the affairs of Ireland. But not even the most hopeful could have anticipated any result half so favourable as the reality which this Memoir of Oliver Plunket presents. It is, from the beginning to the end founded, upon original and authentic documents; all the details of the early studies of Dr. Plunket and of his residence in Rome, are filled up from authentic records with almost circumstantial minuteness; and the period of his episcopate and especially of his missionary life in Ireland is written exclusively from his own or contemporary letters, and from other records, derived, with hardly an exception, from the archives and libraries of Rome. Scarcely a month of Dr. Plunket's episcopate in Ireland passes without a letter to some of his Roman friends; on many occasions, his correspondence is still more frequent; and these letters are often accompanied by reports and statements which are of the utmost value as illustrating the condition of the country. Even for the blank and dreary period of which we have been speaking-the first years of the Cromwellian Occupation-Dr. Moran has done far more than could have been anticipated. He has gathered together into a most interesting Introduction every scrap of information deriv |