In the Summaria which forms a prominent, if not the principal feature in the present work, the reader must not forget that it is a specimen, not a single isolated instance. It represents a class of documents in the spiritual diplomacy of Rome, dis

apology which the Romanists use in defence of their image worship. The heathen has taught them, that the worship passes through the image to the god, that is, the saint. It is well known that the Papal Jubilees originated with Boniface VIII., and were a plain adaptation to the secular games. But it became profitable both to abridge the time of recurrence, and to give them a more sacred reference; and therefore the period was reduced to fifty years, and the Jewish Jubilee was represented as the prototype. I notice this the more anxiously, because it has afforded the ground and example to transfer the origin of papal observances from heathen to Jewish. This is the artifice adopted by Challoner in his pretended answer to Middleton's celebrated Letter from Rome in the Preface to his Catholic Christian Instructed. True, popery had incorporated in her ritual the great mass of the Mosaic; but the heathen material predominates throughout. Let any one read the valuable and scarce work of the Rev. A. Meagher, Doctor of the Sarbonne, the Popish Mass celebrated by Heathen Priests, &c., and he will see the fact as clear as sunlight can make it. This remark will serve as a key to the whole system of popish defence of this character. Judaism indeed comes in opportunely as part of the conformity, but not the main, nor the true part, as derivation is concerned. Even Polydore Vergil, G. du Choul, and others have seen and recorded the pagan parentage. The progressive encroachments of popery will probably produce the republication of Meagher, Sall, and other most estimable deserters of the Church of Rome. They were calumniated by Rome as usual: but the last was vindicated by the honesty of an eminent Franciscan, Peter Walsh, whose reputation has nothing to fear, either from Dr. Milner or the Earl of Shrewsbury.

Inst. v., 9, pp. 381-5. Tom. I. Du Fresnoy, Paris, 1748.

tinguished by all that acute, yet sottish sophistry, that less studied than necessary ambiguity and confusion, which is the very life of the pretensions and practices of that empirical church. All the general, that is, topical or national, Indulgences, run in the same phraseology. There is enough plain to secure the main object, and enough obscure to make dependence and application necessary. The right of interpretation is the great secret of Rome in all her transactions. Even her last, ultimately defining council, required a Congregation to interpret her politic obscurity.

In Weever's Funeral Monuments* occurs a document in English very analogous to that relative to the cathedral of Saintes, and importantly illustrative of it. It is a bull of Pope Alexander VI., not for the erection or repair of a church, but professedly for the support of a war against the Turk. Yet in substance and form it exhibits a very minute accordance with the Indulgence referred to. That the reigning pope in the year 1500, which should be a Jubilee, had prepared for such a celebration, is beyond doubt. Bulls, which, although suppressed where they ought legitimately to be found,† are still found in contemporary or antient collections; the * First ed. 1631, pp. 165-9.

The modern Bullaria, at least Cherubini's.

See particularly Collectio Divers Constitutt. a Greg. VII. ad Greg. XIII. Romæ 1579, Cum. Privilegio, pp. 77-9, two

records of history ;* and the honesty of some collectors, fall, with one voice, proclaim, that the simoniac Alexander VI. knew that it was a Jubilee year, and made the natural advantage of it. This generally. But we have a monument of the concern of this pontiff for England in particular. Our own historians have attested the fact. Polidore Vergil, and Hall and Grafton,t who copy him, under

bulls. Fabricius in his Bibl. Gr. ed. ult. xii. 180, mentions this edition; but, as in his Bibl. Med. et Inf., with the wrong date, 1589. Specia, in the Bullar. Rom. Continuatio, Romæ 1835, i., Pref. xi., likewise notices it, but as 4to. instead of folio.

*Raynaldus under A.D. 1500.

+ Amort de Indulg., who has five or more Constitutions on the subject, pp. 79-86.

The account of these harmonious historians is curious, and I give it in the English of Hall for the benefit of English readers. "Soon after when this plague was slaked, the king returned again to England, about the end of June, and being come into England, soon after there came to him one Gasper Pous, a Spaniard (both for learning and good behaviour very excellent), sent from Alexander, bishop of Rome, which should shew the Englishmen the right way to heaven. Therefore that year was called the year of Jubilee, which was the year of our Lord a thousand five hundred. And to the intent that the people of far countries might be eased of their labour and travel in coming thither, the charitable father sent his legates into every country to distribute the heavenly grace (as he called it) to all christian people, which either letted by war, enemies, infirmity, weakness, or tediousness of the long journey, were not able to perform their journey to the holy city of Rome. But this benevolent liberality was not frank and freely given: for the holy bishop Alexander, with helping and looking to the health of men's souls, thought somewhat to do for his own private commodity and singular wealth, and therefore he limited and set a certain price of this his grace and

the year 1500, have given the same pretty accurate outline of the proceeding of the pope in his disinterested contrivance to extract substantial riches from England in consideration of the spiritual treasures of his Indulgences. The pretence-and it was seen through as a pretence on all hands-of a war with the Turk, answered the purpose of supplying the pope and his infamous son with the means of prosecuting their petty wars with the Italian states. All the historians mentioned above, and their followers, Lord Bacon in his History of Henry VII.,

pardon and to the end that the king should not hinder nor let his purpose, he offered part of this his gain unto the king. And that the people might the sooner minish their purses, and enrich his chests, he promised that he would in the beginning of the year make war in all haste against the great Turk. By this means and policy this Alexander got, accumulated, and heaped up a great sum of money, and yet no battle begun against the Turk, which in the mean season had taken, conquered, and destroyed many regions, cities, and towns belonging to Christian men: but God amend all that is amiss." Last edition, p. 492. There was no use in retaining the old orthography. The reader may look at Gordon's Life of Alexander VI., pp. 229-231. I have an Italian life of this profligate pontiff in MS., differing, as it appears, in some respects, from that in the possession of Gordon, in which the anonymous author, towards the end, after speaking of the publication of the Jubilee, as the best and most notable act of his pontificate, adds, il quale celebrò con qualche divotione, dando fuori molte Indulgenze, et assolvere molti popoli; e perdonò peccati piu nefandi senza rigore, rimettendo con assoluta auttorita li peccati à tutti senza distintione. Fece affigere molte notificationi in diverse volte, nelle quali diceva perdonare anche à quelli che per qualsivoglia impedimento non potevano venire in Roma à prendere il santo Giubileo.

b

and the rest, in conformity with the document which will be extracted from, agree in naming Gaspar Pons, or Powe, of whom we shall have more to say, as the papal Commissary. Weever, in a marginal note, where he produces the bull, writes, "Copied out of an old Roll, now in the custody of Sir Symon D'Ewes, knight." Henry Care, who proved a "nimble convert," like Dryden, under James II., in his Weekly Pacquet of Advice from Rome, in the fifth volume, Number 26, and of the date of 1683, speaks of the Rates of the English Jubilee of 1500 as we find them specified in an old ROLL not long since to be seen in the custody of that learned antiquary, Sir Symon D'Ewes."* Now the large collection of Manuscripts belonging to this eminent scholar came, we are told, into the possession of Harley, Earl of Oxford: and we might naturally expect to find them in that vast repository, the British Museum, which contains the MS. stores of the just mentioned nobleman.† And it is the fact, that

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* P. 202. See likewise in the 2d edition, under the title of The History of Popery. Vol. ii., p. 410.

The Biog Brit. says that a part of Sir Simon's MSS. were to be found in the Library of the College of Arms. Such a document, however, as the above, was not likely to be selected for such an institution. In Bernard's Cat. Lib. MSS. Angliæ, &c. II., pp. 385-8, is a Catalogue of the MSS. of the grandson of the same name, of Stow Langtoft in Suffolk: but nothing of the sort appears there. There was something rather promising in the Harleian Catalogue, vol. I., p. 61, Cod. 172, art. 15. De indulgentiarum annis ab Alexandro Papa VI. concessis. 89 et 92.