ceived the dignity of ROYAL HIGHNESS is not cer tain: but PHILIP, DUKE OF ORLEANS, only brother to Louis the Fourteenth, and his son PHILIP, as nephew to that Monarch, bore the title.

The word HIGHNESS has been varied by the addition of other terms, besides that of " ROYAL." The Prince of Condé took the title of "SERENE HIGHNESS," to distinguish himself from the natural Princes; and this latter style, as well as "MOST SERENE HIGHNESS," " ELECTORAL HIGHNESS" and "Imperial Highness," are applied to different Princes on the continent to this period. (Piccart,-Memoires Curieux,-Blackstone,-Rapin,-Divi Britannici, &c.)

Saint Boniface.
(5TH JUNE.)

WINFRED, or BONIFACE as he was afterwards called, was born of English parents of considerable property, at Kirton, or Crediton, in Devonshire he received his education at a Benedictine Monastery at Exeter, and having gained a reputation for knowledge, was early ordained priest, and sent over to Friseland to endeavour to convert the heathens, where several of his countrymen had before been employed with some success. At this period, A. D. 715, Friseland was convulsed by a furious warfare, and WINFRED, and two other Missionaries who accompanied

him, were obliged to return to England. In the year 719, having obtained powers from Pope GREGORY the Second to act as Legate to the Holy See, he returned to the Continent, and preached the Gospel in Friseland and throughout Germany. In 723 he went to Rome, and was consecrated a Bishop by GREGORY the Second, who changed his name to BONIFACE; but he was not appointed to any particular diocese, that he might be enabled the more effectually to renew his exertions in Germany and it was upon this occasion that he took the OATH OF OBEDIENCE TO THE PAPAL CHAIR, which is considered as the first instance of the kind: swearing by ST. PETER'S TOMB never to separate from the Romish Church, or its spiritual discipline.

Returning to Germany with his new dignities and augmented authority, BONIFACE soon obtained such a number of converts that he was enabled to establish many Christian Churches in that country. Pope GREGORY the Third, in 738, advanced him to the dignity of Archbishop, and added still further to his ecclesiastical powers by constituting him Vicar General in Germany; by virtue of which latter BONIFACE created several Bishoprics under his jurisdiction, and founded the great monastery of FULDA: still, however, he had not any particular See assigned to him until 746, when Pope ZACHARY consecrated him Archbishop of Mentz, giving him the additional title of PRIMATE OF GERMANY and BELGIUM; for which cause, and for the essential services he rendered

the Germans, in converting them from their superstitious and idolatrous errors, he obtained the appellation of Apostle of the GERMANS.

When CHILDERIC was deposed, and PEPIN elected King of the Franks, in 751 according to some, or 752 according to other historians, BoNIFACE crowned and anointed PEPIN and his royal consort; being the first instance, on record, of the ceremony of the CORONATION and ANOINTMENT of the Monarchs of the Franks: before that period their kings, according to the antient German custom, were, on their accession, merely LIFTED ON A SHIELD, to receive the acclamations of their new subjects.

In the year 755, while holding a confirmation in East Friseland, after having abdicated his high office of Archbishop, and become an itinerant preacher, BONIFACE was murdered by some pagan peasants, together with about fifty of his companions; though his body was recovered, and afterwards interred in the church of his own monastery at Fulda.

The means sometimes taken by BONIFACE to convert the barbarians may not, at this period, appear in a very favourable light; he often had recourse to frauds of the most glaring and superstitious nature; but perhaps that course was one of necessity; and, zealously striving for what he justly deemed a most essential benefit to the heathens, he might not have been so culpable, as some authors affirm, in making the very errors

and ignorance of those he converted, the chief means of working so great an end as he had in view: It is also but justice to his character to state, that although he combated the vices and follies of the more ignorant and barbarous of his auditors by superstitious deceit, he much oftener applied to the sense and feeling of those more enlightened, and shewed by strength of argument the truth of the doctrines he inculcated, and the ignorance of the belief of the opposing infidels.

DANIEL, the first Bishop of Winchester, addressed an epistle to BONIFACE while on his mission at Friseland, which for its acuteness of reasoning is worthy of record: " Admit,” says this ingenious prelate, "whatever they are pleased to assert of the fabulous and carnal genealogy of their Gods and Goddesses, who are propagated from each other': from this principle deduce their imperfect nature, and human infirmities, the assurance they were born, and the probability that they will die. At what time, by what means, from what cause, were the eldest of the gods and goddesses produced? Do they still continue, or have they ceased to propagate? If they have ceased, summon your antagonists to declare the reason of this strange alteration: if they still continue, the number of the gods must become infinite; and shall we not risk, by the indiscreet worship of some impotent deity, to excite the resentment of his jealous superior? The visible heavens and earth, the whole system of the uni

verse, which may be conceived by the mind; is it created, or eternal? If created, how or where could the gods themselves exist before the creation? If eternal, how could they assume the empire of an independent and pre-existing world? Urge these arguments with temper and moderation; insinuate, at seasonable intervals, the truth and beauty of the Christian Revelation, and endeavour to make the unbelievers ashamed, without making them angry."

The implicit submission of BONIFACE to the Papal authority; his great and successful exertions in the cause of the Christian faith, though from the errors peculiar to the age in which he lived, not in its greatest purity; and the circumstance of his having been murdered by that very people for whose service he had resigned his See of MENTZ; were sufficient causes for his being canonized; and he certainly is not, by any means, the least worthy Saint yet left in the Reformed calendar.

Some authors, in their zeal to honour BONIFACE, assert him to have been of royal extraction: others contend that he was the son of a wheelwright, and so little ashamed of his parentage, as to bear WHEELS in his arms, which out of compliment to him have been assumed by all his successors in the SEE OF MENTZ.-It is, however, to be observed, that the origin of the Wheels in the arms of the See of Mentz, has been attribated to WILLEGIS, who rose to the dignity