of the society, to interfere in any manner whatever in public affairs, even though they be thereto invited; or to deviate from the institute, through intreaty, persuasion, or any other motive whatever. The congregation recommends to the fathers-coadjutors, that they do propose and determine, with all diligence and speed such farther means as they may think necessary, of remedying this abuse." "We have seen, in the grief of our hearts, that neither these reme dies, nor an infinity of others since employed, have produced their due effect, or silenced the accusations and complaints against the said society, Our other predecessors, Urban VII. Clement IX, X, XI, and XII. Alexander VII. and VIII. Innocent X, XI, XII, and XIII, and Benedict XIV. employed without effect all their efforts to the same purpose. In vain did they endeavour, by salutary constitutions, to restore peace to the church; as well with respect to secular affairs with which the company ought not to have interfered, as with regard to the missions; which gave rise to great disputes and oppositions on the part of the company with the ordinaries, with other religious orders, about the holy places, and communities of all sorts in Europe, Africa, and America, to the great loss of souls, and great scandal of the people; as likewise concerning the meaning and practice of certain idolatrous ceremonies adopted in certain places in contempt of those justly approved by the Catholic church; and, farther, concerning the use and explication of certain maxims, which the holy see has, with reason, proscribed as scandalous, and manifestly con trary to good morals; and lastly, concerning other matters of great importance and prime necessity towards preserving the integrity and purity of the doctrines of the gospel, from which maxims have resulted very great inconveniences and great detriment, both in our days and in past ages; such as the revolts and intestine troubles in some of the Catholic states, persecutions against the church in some countries of Asia and Europe, not to mention the vexation and grating solicitude which these melancholy affairs brought on our predecessors, principally upon Innocent XI. of blessed memory, who found himself reduced to the necessity of forbid. ding the company to receive any more novices; and afterwards upon In nocent XIII. who was obliged to threaten the company with the same punishment; and lastly, upon Benedict XIV. who took the resolution of ordaining a general visitation of all the houses and colleges of the company in the kingdom of our dearly beloved son in Jesus Christ, the most faithfal King of Portugal." (To be continued.) It is now reported, with an air of authority, that his Holiness is disposed to grant, in the fullest extent, the securities, required of the Ro man Catholics by the late relief-bill, as it has been called. The Rescript of M. Quarantotti, reprobated by the flaming Irish Papists, never ought to have been deemed the work of an individual; it was an instrument published by the college, or congregation de propagandâ fide [Romanâ}; and was signed by M. Quarantotti in his official capacity. Mr. Canning, now in partibus Romanistarum, has placed his Irish friends in an awkward predicament. They have protested loudly against the Rescript, a document which owed its origin to the bill of that eloquent statesman. The bill, it now appears, was translated into "choice Italian," and copies were given to the college of Italian priests, who, after mature deliberation, condescended to prescribe the quantum of obedience which certain of his Majesty's Irish subjects might be allowed to yield to the supreme authority of their country; we say after mature deliberation—for it appears that the bill, having been previously perused and examined by the sage members of the propaganda in private, was afterwards read at a public assembly of the college, clause by clause; and that an unanimous vote passed upon the clauses in their order, and, finally, upon the whole bill taken collectively. The Catholic Board at Rome differed widely in their opinion from the Catholic Board in Dublin. The Catholicism of Rome is by no means so highly toned as that of Ireland. We firmly believe the Irish Romanists to be the most papistical of all Popish people;-much more tenacious of their church's authority than the propaganda, or even the Pope himself. We wait the event of the embassy on the part of the Irish religionists now at Rome. Will their negociations have the effect of reconciling their countrymen to the rescript? Will they induce Dr. Dromgole to eat his words, wrapped up in Italian sweetmeats? Will they prevail on the Pope, in the plenitude of his power, to enforce the rescript on the consciences of the orators and agitators who so lately distinguished themselves at the Board? We regard the Pope as a man of firm ess, but we never respected him as a politician; and, after all, we should not be in the least surprised to find him, under the suggestions of Dr. Milner, opposed to and by his Irish adherents, whose violence the plenitude of all his power will not be able to restrain.-We copy the following from the Dublin Journal of December 17th. It purports to be an extract of a letter from London. It throws some light on the above subject: "I suppose you know that the Irish Roman Catholic bishops sent over Dr. Murray (Dr. Troy's colleague) from your country, and Dr. Milner from this, to induce the Pope to rescind Quarantotti's rescript. The result of their mission is, that they have totally failed in persuading him to adopt their views of the subject.-Milner keeps the field in a rage, and Dr. Murray, on his return home, writes from Paris, that he despairs of moving the Pope's determination upon it; on the contrary, his Holiness has declared that he will issue a formal confirmation of its principle the giving to any potentate a proper control over all clerical appointments within his dominions-shewing the innocence of the Veto, or some such arrangement, in England and Ireland, and its perfect accordance with Catholic principles. He has for this purpose invited Doctor Poynter, the Roman Catholic bishop of London, and Mr. Bramston, a very respectable Roman Catholic clergyman, both very rational able men; and they set off on Monday last, Dec. 12th, in consequence, for Rome." The opinion of the Irish Roman Catholics concerning the King of Spain and the Pope is very explicit. Dropping a little of the vulgar familiarity with which his Catholic Majesty is treated, we insert the following passage, taken from the Dublin Evening Post, the gazette of the Irish Papists:-" Ferdinand is working, we firmly believe, for his own destruction.-Joseph would be ten thousand times a better monarch for Spain-though, of course, not so legitimate. "The Pope has reverted to the maxims of the days of Loyola. He has introduced the despotism of old times into the government of the church, and endeavoured to organize the system by the re-establishment: of the Jesuits, the persecution of the Freemasons, and by petting the Inquisition in full and fearful operation. It his Holiness persist in this bigoted and mad career, we shall begin to think that, with every wish to render the Christian world pure and pious, he will; in effect, prove a greater enemy to religion and morality than all the Jacobins, including; "the child and champion of Jacobinism," Napoleon himself. But the efforts of the Pope and of his dearly beloved Ferdinand will be vain-the power of Papal bulls is over-all the Gregories and Leos that ever lived: would not re-establish them. Nay, if it were practicable to assemblela general council, we feel that its decrees to lock up the intellect, or terrify into silence the spirit of freedom, would be nugatory. Such power is disclaimed by Catholics-and the assertion, in the nineteenth century, of such power, only betrays the anility of a feeble old age, or the despa fate and incurable prejudices of a monkish education. If the Pope proceed in this career, we shall begin to have some apprehensions concerning the permanency of his domination. Pasquinades are already appearing at Rome, and parties forming against the system adopted by Pius VII We hope they may succeed, and crush the evil in its bud.". MR. CURRAN'S CHARACTER OF THE LATE CATHOLIC BOARD. We think it right to give this very curious paper a place in our mis cellany, among other documents. It certainly contains a very just character of the Board. Whether it be written by John Philpot Curran, Esq. late Master of the Rolls in Ireland, we will not positively affirm, but that it bears presumptive internal evidence of his style and manner of writing there cannot be a doubt. It is not quite so splendid an effort of composition as the celebrated character of Mr. Pitt-" the Secretary stood alone," &c, but it has great merit, and we recommend it to posterity as giving a true portrait of that assemblage of folly and madness, of rage and impotence, of noise and nonsense, dupes, slaves, and traitors, that met together at "the Board."-"The Catholics (says Mr. Curran or his double, aut Erasmus aut Diabolus) who are the loudest complainants, have, in my mind, the least of which to complain; they do all they can to embitter the possession of others, whilst they do nothing to secure a participation to themselves. When I say the Catholics, you, who know my opinions, are aware that I mean their mis-deputed delegates, the Catholic Board. Indeed, a medley of more ludicrous, or, at the same time, of more mischievous composition, could not have been well imagined; it was a drama of which physicians without fees, lawyers without briefs, shopkeepers without businesss, captains without commissions, and bankrupts without certificates, were the component characters; every wretch who was too vain for a counter and too vulgar for a drawing-room, aspired to eloquence; those who could not rave could vote, and those who could not vote could legislate, Quicquid agunt homines," was their. motto, and, like Anacharsis Cloots, they were all orators of the human race-out of compassion, perhaps, to the individual country which might otherwise have been doomed to their enviable appropriation.—With freedom on their tongues, they founded a despotism; in the name of Christianity, they erected an inquisition; they bearded the courts; they abused the government; they taxed the people; at Newry and Tipperary they: directly attacked the freedom of election; they put all the printers in, gaol, and toasted the "liberty of the press." They rent asunder the sacred curtain of the royal nuptials-one who spoke bad Irish, and worse, English, announced himself as ambassador to the Spanish cortes; ano. . ther enacted a penal code out of his own imagination, and verified one grievance by caging his publisher; that nothing might be wanting to complete the system of public and private nuisances, they chose a kind of learned pig for their secretary, who, with his portfolio on his back, ran you down at any distance, and almost grunted you to death with the burden of his correspondence. In short, there was nothing too grave for their ridicule, or too ridiculous for their solemnities; every man played Punch to his own music, and rung the bell to his own praises; when there was no danger they all roared-and when there was, they all ran, thrusting, like so many ostriches, the safest and the silliest part about them into the first receptacle solid enough to confine it: they put on the armour of Achilles, but, unlike Achilles, they expose nothing but their heels, the only members they had which gave signs of animation. They had one merit, however, and this was a strict impartiality: for if they denounced their foes, they imprisoned their friends; those who differed from them they slandered; those who agreed with them they enslaved. In short, the universal fate was, either to be their dupe or their victim. Not content with the enemies that bigotry had arrayed against them, the Helots proclaimed hostilities against each other: and a heartless, headless, stationless aristocracy, hurled their very manacles at the mob, to which they were inferior. It is scarcely possible to believe that, during this very conciliatory system, they were bellowing for toleration, and bawling for liberty. Nor was the metropolis alone infested with their exhibitions; they dealt out roving commissions, and sent strolling companies through all the provinces; every company had its dramatic orator; "whatever is is wrong," was prefixed to their curtain, and the motto was realised by the managers behind it. "If the drama closed with their individual ridicule, or their individual exposure, perhaps there might be the less cause for commiseration-but it did not-the miserable people were the real sufferers-the dupes of a mad ambition, or a base avarice-they were eternally sacrificed and swindled; and when they had thrown all they had into the bonfire of rebellion, they were flung in themselves to extinguish it with their blood. Such is the state to which our own fatuity has reduced us; for my part, I see nothing but madness in the past and misery in the future. In the course of nature, however, I must soon retire from the contest; but I do confess, I weep to see my country my ancestor, and that I should be obliged to strew upon her grave the garland which a laborious life had gathered for her glory.". The editor of the Dublin Evening Post says of this character, and we had almost prefixed the dictum of that gentleman by way of motto to it, VOL. III. Prot. Adv. Feb. 1815.] 2 D |