driven back Protestantism even to the German land and Protestant Holland joined with CathoOcean. Then the great southern reaction be-lic Savoy and Catholic Portugal, for the purgan to slacken, as the great northern movement pose of transferring the crown of Spain from had slackened before. The zeal of the Catho- one bigoted Catholic to another. ics became cool; their union was dissolved. The geographical frontier between the two The paroxysm of religious excitement was religions has continued to run almost preover on both sides. The one party had de-cisely where it ran at the close of the Thirty generated as far from the spirit of Loyola as Years' War; nor has Protestantism given any the other from the spirit of Luther. During proofs of that "expansive power" which has three generations, religion had been the main-been ascribed to it. But the Protestant boasts, spring of politics. The revolutions and civil and most justly, that wealth, civilization, and wars of France, Scotland, Holland, Sweden, intelligence have increased far more on the the long struggle between Philip and Elizabeth, northern than on the southern side of the the bloody competition for the Bohemian crown, boundary; that countries so little favoured by all originated in theological disputes. nature as Scotland and Prussia are now among the most flourishing and best governed portions of the world-while the marble palaces of Genoa are deserted-while banditti infest the beautiful shores of Campania-while the fertile

But a great change now took place. The contest which was raging in Germany lost its religious character. It was now, on the one side, less a contest for the spiritual ascendency of the Church of Rome than for the temporal as-sea-coast of the Pontifical State is abandoned cendency of the house of Austria. On the to buffaloes and wild boars. It cannot be other, it was less a contest for the reformed doubted, that since the sixteenth century, the doctrine than for national independence. Go- Protestant nations-fair allowance being made vernments began to form themselves into new for physical disadvantages-have made decombinations, in which community of political cidedly greater progress than their neighbours. interest was far more regarded than communi- The progress made by those nations in which ty of religious belief. Even at Rome the pro- Protestantism, though not finally successful, yet gress of the Catholic arms was observed with maintained a long struggle, and left permanent very mixed feelings. The Supreme Pontiff traces, has generally been considerable. But was a sovereign prince of the second rank, and when we come to the Catholic Land, to the was anxious about the balance of power, as part of Europe in which the first spark of rewell as about the propagation of truth. It was formation was trodden out as soon as it appear known that he dreaded the rise of a universal ed, and from which proceeded the impulse monarchy even more than he desired the pros- which drove Protestantism back, we find, at perity of the Universal Church. At length a best, a very slow progress, and on the whole a great event announced to the world that the retrogression. Compare Denmark and Por war of sects had ceased, and that the war of tugal. When Luther began to preach, the states had succeeded. A coalition, including superiority of the Portuguese was unquestion Calvinists, Lutherans, and Catholics, was able. At present the superiority of the Danes formed against the house of Austria. At the is no less so. Compare Edinburgh and Flohead of that coalition were the first statesman rence. Edinburgh has owed less to climate, and first warrior of the age; the former a to soil, and to the fostering care of rulers, than prince of the Catholic Church, distinguished any capital, Protestant or Catholic. In all by the vigour and success with which he had these respects, Florence has been singularly put down the Huguenots-the latter a Protestant happy. Yet whoever knows what Florence king, who owed his throne to the revolution and Edinburgh were in the generation precaused by hatred of Popery. The alliance of ceding the Reformation, and what they are Richelieu and Gustavus marks the time at now, will acknowledge that some great cause which the great religious struggle terminated. has, during the last three centuries, operated The war which followed was a war for the to raise one part of the European family, and equilibrium of Europe. When, at length, the to depress the other. Compare the history of peace of Westphalia was concluded, it appear-England and that of Spain during the last cened that the Church of Rome remained in full tury. In arms, arts, sciences, letters, com possession of a vast dominion, which in the merce, agriculture, the contrast is most strikmiddle of the preceding century she seemed ing. The distinction is not confined to this to be on the point of losing. No part of Eu-side of the Atlantic. The colonies planted by rope remained Protestant, except that part England in America have immeasurably out which had become thoroughly Protestant be-grown in power those planted by Spain. Yet fore the generation which heard Luther preach we have no reason to believe that, at the be had passed away. ginning of the sixteenth century, the Castilian was in any respect inferior to the Englishman. Our firm belief is, that the North owes its great civilization and prosperity chiefly to the moral effect of the Protestant Reformation; and that the decay of the Southern countries of Europe is to be mainly ascribed to the great Catholic revival.

Since that time there has been no religious war between Catholics and Protestants as such. In the time of Cromwell, Protestant England was united with Catholic France, then governed by a priest. against Catholic Spain. William the Third, the eminently Protestant hero, was at the head of a coalition which included many Catholic powers, and which was secretly fa- About a hundred years after the final settle voured even by Rome, against the Catholic ment of the boundary line between Protestant Jouis In the time of Anne, Protestant Eng-ism and Catholicism, began to appear the

signs of the fourth great peril of the Church on the wheel at Toulouse-when a youth, of Rome. The storm which was now rising guilty only of an indiscretion, was burned as against her was of a very different kind from Abbeville-when a brave officer, borne down those which had preceded it. Those who had by public injustice, was dragged, with a gag in formerly attacked her had questioned only a his mouth, to die on the Place de Grève, a part of her doctrines. A school was now voice instantly went forth from the banks of growing up which rejected the whole. The Lake Leman, which made itself heard from Albigenses, the Lollards, the Lutherans, the Moscow to Cadiz, and which sentenced the Calvinists, had a positive religious system, unjust judges to the contempt and detestation and were strongly attached to it. The creed of all Europe. The really efficient weapons of the new sectaries was altogether negative. with which the philosophers assailed the evanThey took one of their premises from the gelical faith were borrowed from the evangeliCatholics, and one from the Protestants. cal morality. The ethical and dogmatical From the former they borrowed the principle, parts of the Gospel were unhappily turned that Catholicism was the only pure and ge- against each other. On the one side was a nuine Christianity. With the latter they held church boasting of the purity of a doctrine dethat some parts of the Catholic system were rived from the apostles; but disgraced by the contrary to reason. The conclusion was ob- massacre of St. Bartholomew, by the murder vious. Two propositions, each of which sepa- of the best of kings, by the war of the Cevenrately is compatible with the most exalted nes, by the destruction of Port-Royal. On the piety, formed, when held in conjunction, the other side was a sect laughing at the Scripgroundwork of a system of irreligion. The tures, shooting out the tongue at the sacra doctrine of Bossuet, that transubstantiation is ments, but ready to encounter principalities affirmed in the Gospel, and the doctrine of and powers in the cause of justice, mercy, and Tillotson, that transubstantiation is an absurd- toleration. ity, when put together, produced by logical necessity the inferences of Voltaire.

Irreligion, accidentally associated with philanthropy, triumphed for a time over religion Had the sect which was rising at Paris been accidentally associated with political and sɔa sect of mere scoffers, it is very improbable cial abuses. Every thing gave way to the that it would have left deep traces of its exist-zeal and activity of the new reformers. In ence in the institutions and manners of Eu- France, every man distinguished in letters rope. Mere negation-mere Epicurean infi- was found in their ranks. Every year gave delity, as Lord Bacon most justly observes birth to works in which the fundamental prinhas never disturbed the peace of the world. It ciples of the Church were attacked with argufurnishes no motive for action. It inspires no ment, invective, and ridicule. The Church enthusiasm. It has no missionaries, no cru- made no defence, except by acts of power. saders, no martyrs. If the Patriarch of the Censures were pronounced editions were Holy Philosophical Church had contented seized-insults were offered to the remains of himself with making jokes about Saul's asses infidel writers; but no Bossuet, no Pascal, and David's wives, and with criticising the came forth to encounter Voltaire. There appoetry of Ezekiel in the same narrow spirit in peared not a single defence of the Catholic which he criticised that of Shakspeare, the doctrine which produced any considerable efChurch would have had little to fear. But it is fect, or which is now even remembered. A due to him and to his compeers to say, that the bloody and unsparing persecution, like that real secret of their strength lay in the truth which put down the Albigenses, might have which was mingled with their errors, and in put down the philosophers. But the time for the generous enthusiasm which was hidden De Montforts and Dominics had gone by. The under their flippancy. They were men who, punishments which the priests were still able with all their faults, moral and intellectual, to inflict were sufficient to irritate, but not suf sincerely and earnestly desired the improve- ficient to destroy. The war was between ment of the condition of the human race-power on the one side, and wit on the other, whose blood boiled at the sight of cruelty and and the power was under far more restraint injustice-who made manful war, with every than the wit. Orthodoxy soon became a badge faculty which they possessed, on what they of ignorance and stupidity. It was as necesconsidered as abuses-and who on many sig- sary to the character of an accomplished man nal occasions placed themselves gallantly be- that he should despise the religion of his conn tween the powerful and the oppressed. While try, as that he should know his letters. The they assailed Christianity with a rancour and new doctrines spread rapidly through Christenan unfairness disgraceful to men who call dom. Paris was the capital of the whole con themselves philosophers, they yet had, in far tinent. French was everywhere the language greater measure than their opponents, that of polite circles. The literary glory of Italy charity towards men of all classes and races and Spain had departed. That of Germany which Christianity enjoins. Religious perse- had not yet dawned. The teachers of France cution, judicial torture, arbitrary imprison- were the teachers of Europe. The Parisian ment, the unnecessary multiplication of capital opinions spread fast among the educate punishments, the delay and chicanery of tri- classes beyond the Alps; nor could the vigi bunals, the exactions of farmers of the revenue, lance of the Inquisition prevent the contraband slavery, the slave trade, were the constant sub- importation of the new heresy into Castile and jects of their lively satire and eloquent disqui- Portugal. Governments-even arbitrary gositions. When an innocent man was broken vernments-saw with pleasure the progress

of this philosophy. Numerous reforms, generally laudable, sometimes hurried on without sufficient regard to time, to place, and to public feeling, showed the extent of its influence. The rulers of Prussia, of Russia, of Austria, and of many smaller states, were supposed to be among the intiated.

The Church of Rome was still, in outward show, as stately and splendid as ever; but her foundation was undermined. No state had quitted her communion, or confiscated her revenues; but the reverence of the people was everywhere departing from her.

The first great warning stroke was the fall of that society which, in the conflict with Protestantism, had saved the Catholic Church from destruction. The order of Jesus had never recovered from the injury received in the struggle with Port-Royal. It was now still more rudely assailed by the philosophers. Its spirit was broken; its reputation was tainted. Insulted by all the men of genius in Europe, condemned by the civil magistrate, feebly defended by the chiefs of the hierarchy, it felland great was the fall of it.

Nor were the calamities of the Church con fined to France. The revolutionary spirit, attacked by all Europe, beat all Europe back, became conqueror in its turn, and, not satisfied with the Belgian cities and the rich domains of the spiritual electors, went raging over the Rhine and through the passes of the Alps. Throughout the whole of the great war against Protestantism, Italy and Spain had been the base of the Catholic operations. Spain was now the obsequious vassal of the infidels. Italy was subjugated by them. To her ancient principalities succeeded the Cisalpine republic, and the Ligurian republic, and the Parthenopean republic. The shrine of Loretto was stripped of the treasures piled up by the devotion of six hundred years. The convents of Rome were pillaged. The tricoloured flag floated on the top of the castle of St. Angelo. The successor of St. Peter was carried away captive by the unbelievers. He died a prisoner in their hands; and even the honours of sepulture were long withheld from his remains.

It is not strange that in the year 1799, even sagacious observers should have thought that, at length, the hour of the Church of Rome was come. An infidel power ascendant-the Pope dying in captivity-the most illustrious prelates of France living in a foreign country on Protestant alms-the noblest edifices which the munificence of former ages had consecrated to the worship of God, turned into temples of victory, or into banqueting-houses for political societies, or into Theophilanthropic chapels-such signs might well be supposed to indicate the approaching end of that long domination.

The movement went on with increasing speed. The first generation of the new sect passed away. The doctrines of Voltaire were inherited and exaggerated by successors, who bore to nim the same relation which the Anabaptists bore to Luther, or the Fifth-Monarchy men to Pym. At length the Revolution came. Down went the old Church of France, with all its pomp and wealth. Some of its priests purchased a maintenance by separating themselves from Rome, and by becoming the authors of a fresh schism. Some, rejoicing in the new license, flung away their sacred vest- But the end was not yet. Again doomed to ments, proclaimed that their whole life had death, the milk-white hind was still fated not been an imposture, insulted and persecuted to die. Even before the funeral rites had been the religion of which they had been ministers, performed over the ashes of Pius the Sixth, a and distinguished themselves even in the Ja-great reaction had commenced, which after the cobin Club and the Commune of Paris, by the lapse of more than forty years appears to be excess of their impudence and ferocity. Others, still in progress. Anarchy had its day. A more faithful to their principles, were butch-new order of things rose out of the confusionered by scores without a trial, drowned, shot, new dynasties, new laws, new titles; and hung on lamp-posts. Thousands fled from amidst them emerged the ancient religion. their country to take sanctuary under the shade of hostile altars. The churches were closed; the bells were silent; the shrines were plundered; the silver crucifixes were melted down. Buffoons, dressed in copes and surplices, came dancing the carmagnole even to the bar of the Convention. The bust of Marat was substituted for the statues of the martyrs of Chris-peared alone amidst the ruins of a world which tianity. A prostitute, seated in state in the had passed away. The republic of Holland chancel of Notre Dame, received the adoration was gone, and the empire of Germany, and the of thousands, who exclaimed that at length, Great Council of Venice, and the old Helvetian for 'he first time, those ancient Gothic arches League, and the house of Bourbon, and the had resounded with the accents of truth. The Parliaments and aristocracy of France. Europe new unbelief was as intolerant as the old su- was full of young creations-a French empire, perstition. To show reverence for religion a kingdom of Italy, a Confederation of the was to incur the suspicion of disaffection. It Rhine. Nor had the late events affected only ter was not without imminent danger that the ritorial limits and political institutions. The dispriest baptized the infant, joined the hands of tribution of property, the composition and spirit lovers, or listened to the confession of the of society, had, through great part of Catholic dying The absurd worship of the Goddess of Europe, undergone a complete change. But Reason was, indeed, of short duration but the the unchangeable Church was still there. Some deism of Robespierre and Lepaux was not less future historian, as able and temperate as Pronostile to the Catholic faith that the atheism of fessor Ranke, will, we hope, trace the progress Clootz and Chaumette. of the Catholic revival of the nineteenth cen

The Arabs had a fable that the Great Pyramid was built by antediluvian kings, and alone, of all the works of men, bore the weight of the flood. Such as this was the fate of the Papacy. It had been buried under the great inundation; but its deep foundations had remained unshaken; and, when the waters abated, it ap

COWLEY AND MILTON.*

"Referre sermones Deorum et
Magna modis tenuare parvis."
HORACE.

I HAVE thought it good to set down in writing | an hour on the river." To this they both cheer memorable debate, wherein I was a listener, fully consented, and forth we walked, Mr. Cowe and two men of pregnant parts and great repu-ley and I leading Mr. Milton between us, to the tation discoursers; hoping that my friends will Temple Stairs. There we took a boat, and not be displeased to have a record both of the thence we rowed up the river. strange times through which I have lived, and The wind was pleasant; the evening fine; of the famous men with whom I have con- the sky, the earth, and the water beautiful to versed. It chanced in the warm and beautiful look upon. But Mr. Cowley and I held our spring of the year 1665, a little before the sad-peace, and said nothing of the gay sights around dest summer that ever London saw, that I went us, lest we should too feelingly remind Mr. to the Bowling-Green at Piccadilly, whither at Milton of his calamity; whereof, however, he that time the best gentry made continual resort. needed no monitor, for soon he said, sadly, There I met Mr. Cowley, who had lately left "Ah, Mr. Cowley, you are a happy man. What Barnelms. There was then a house preparing would I now give for one more look at the sun, for him at Chertsey, and till it should be finished and the waters, and the gardens of this fair he had come up for a short time to London, that city?" he might urge a suit to his Grace of Buckingham touching certain lands of her majesty's whereof he requested a lease. I had the honour to be familiarly_acquainted with that worthy gentleman and most excellent poet, whose death hath been deplored with as general a consent of all powers that delight in the woods, or in verse, or in love, as was of old that of Daphnis or of Gallus.

"I know not," said Mr. Cowley, "whether we ought not rather to envy you for that which makes you to envy others; and that especially in this place, where all eyes which are not closed in blindness ought to become fountains of tears. What can we look upon which is not a memorial of change and sorrow, of fair things vanished, and evil things done! When I see the gate of Whitehall, and the stately pil lars of the Banqueting House, I cannot choose but think of what I have seen there in former days, masques, and pageants, and dances, and smiles, and the waving of graceful heads, and the bounding of delicate feet. And then I turn to thoughts of other things, which even to re member makes me blush and weep;-of the great black scaffold, and the axe and the block, which were placed before those very windows; and the voice seems to sound in mine ears, the lawless and terrible voice which cried out that the head of a king was the head of a traitor. There stands Westminster Hall, which who can look upon and not tremble to think how time, and change, and death confound the counsels of the wise, and beat down the wea pons of the mighty? How have I seen it sur rounded with tens of thousands of petitioners crying for justice and privilege! How have I heard it shake with fierce and proud words, which made the hearts of the people to burn within them! Then it is blockaded by dra goons and cleared by pikemen. And they who have conquered their master go forth trembling at the word of their servant. And yet a little while, and the usurper comes forth from it, in his robe of ermine, with the golden staff in one hand and the Bible in the other, amidst the roaring of the guns and the shouting of the people. And yet again a little while, and the and the hearse and the plumes come forth, and doors are thronged with multitudes in black, the tyrant is borne, in more than royal pomp

After some talk, which it is not material to set down at large, concerning his suit and his vexations at the court, where indeed his honesty did him more harm than his parts could do him good, I entreated him to dine with me at my lodgings in the Temple, which he most courteously promised. And that so eminent a guest might not lack a better entertainment than cooks or vintners can provide, I sent to the house of Mr. John Milton, in the Artillery Walk, to beg that he would also be my guest. For, though he had been secretary, first to the Council of State, and after that to the Protector, and Mr. Cowley had held the same post under Lord St. Albans in his banishment, I hoped, notwithstanding, that they would think themselves rather united by their common art than divided by their different factions. And so indeed it proved. For while we sate at table they talked freely of many men and things, as well ancient as modern, with much civility. Nay. Mr. Milton, who seldom tasted wine, both because of his singular temperance, and because of his gout, did more than once pledge Mr. Cowley, who was indeed no hermit in diet. At last, being heated, Mr. Milton begged that I would open the windows. "Nay," said I, "if you desire fresh air and coolness, what should hinder us, as the evening is fair, from sailing

* A Conversation between Mr. Abraham Cowley and Mr. John Milton, touching the Great Ciril War.-Set down by

a Gentleman of the Middle Temple.