Compare his conduct with that of More, Fisher, or any of the three hundred persons who suffered death under your penal laws.

Crimination is not my disposition; I trust it is not my character: on this occasion, you, and those whom you have condescended to copy, (for I am sensible they are greatly your inferiors,) have forced it on me. Now, therefore, after hearing what I have been thus forced to say, permit me to ask, whether, in your opinion, those who provoke discussions of the lives and characters of the two prelates I have mentioned, are real friends to their memories?

I possess a picture-book for children, published by an eminent protestant clergyman, now living, in which the fires of Smithfield are vividly represented. Is not this most imprudent? And, as it contains no representations of the racks, the gibbets, or the fires, by which the roman-catholics suffered, in the reigns of queen Elizabeth and her three successors, is not the representation both partial and unjust? It is time that this wretched ribaldry should cease. I make you the same offer as doctor Milner made to the late doctor Sturges: -Let protestants cease to reproach the romancatholics with Mary's fires, and roman-catholics shall be equally silent on the sanguinary code of Elizabeth, and the savage executions under it.

XIV. 3.

Character of Queen Mary's Reign.

You boldly term it execrable: I hope that, when you wrote this word, you had not read doctor Lingard's account of it, and the excellent summary and observations by which his account of it is concluded. If you had, it would appear to me wonderful that you should express yourself in the manner you have done. The whole passage is too long for insertion; I shall transcribe the first page.

"The foulest blot on the character of this queen " is her long and cruel persecution of the reformers. "The sufferings of the victims naturally begat an

antipathy to the woman by whose authority they "were inflicted. It is, however, but fair to recol"lect, what I have already noticed, that the extir"pation of erroneous doctrine was inculcated as "a duty by the leaders of every religious party. Mary only practised what they taught. It was her "misfortune, rather than her fault, that she was "not more enlightened than the wisest of her 66 contemporaries.

"With this exception, she has been ranked by "the more moderate of the reformed writers among the best, though not the greatest of our

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princes. They have borne honourable testimony "to her virtues have allotted to her the praise "of piety and clemency, of compassion for the

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poor, and liberality to the distressed; and have

"recorded her solicitude to restore to opulence the "families that had been unjustly deprived of their

possessions by her father and brother, and to pro"vide for the wants of the parochial clergy, who "had been reduced to penury by the spoliations of "the last government. It is acknowledged, that "her moral character is beyond reproof. It ex-"torted respect from all; even from the most viru"lent of her enemies. The ladies of her house"hold copied the conduct of their mistress; and "the decency of Mary's court was often mentioned "with applause, by those who lamented the dis"soluteness which prevailed in that of her suc

"cessor.

To the eternal praise of the Irish roman-catholics be it remembered, that, in the reign of queen Mary, they totally abstained from persecution." In the "reign of queen Mary," says sir William Parnel,

though the religious feelings of Irish catholics, " and their feelings as men, had been treated with "very little ceremony during the two preceding

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reigns, they made a wise and moderate use of "their ascendancy. They entertained no resent"ment for the past, they raised no plans for future domination.-THE IRISH ROMAN-CATHOLIC

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"BIGOTS!!-THE IRISH ROMAN-CATHOLICS ARE THE ONLY SECT THAT EVER RESUMED POWER, WITHOUT EXERCISING VENGEANCE *."

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• Historical Apology.

WE now reach the most important reign in the histories both of your church and mine since the reformation. I shall mention in this letter,-I. The establishment of the protestant religion in the reign of queen Elizabeth; and notice some statements and observations respecting it in "the Book of the "Church:"-II. Then insert a summary of the laws passed in her reign against the roman-catholics :III. Then state the executions of the roman-catholics under the sanguinary part of this code:-IV. Then consider the arguments offered in justification of these executions, from the general disloyalty of the roman-catholics :-v. From their persecuting principles VI. And from their alleged plots :VII. I shall then notice what you entirely omit mentioning, their exemplary conduct while England was threatened by the Spanish Armada :VIII. And conclude the letter with observations on some other charges contained in your letter.

XV. 1.

The Establishment of the Protestant Religion in the Reign of Queen Elizabeth.-Observation on some Statements respecting it in "the Book of the Church." You begin the chapter, which I now have under consideration, by informing us, that “Eliza

"beth's life had been in imminent danger during "her sister's reign;" and by noticing "the seve"rity with which she had been treated." But can you read the evidence produced by doctor Lingard, of the concurrence of Elizabeth in Wyat's treason, and the earl of Devonshire's conspiracy, without believing her guilt? Can you say, that the evidence for it is not stronger than that upon which she caused the unfortunate Mary of Scotland to be executed? You then inform us, that "the cruelties of the preceding reign were regarded "with abhorrence by all, except those who had "been instrumental in them." The number of those must have been extremely small; justice, therefore, forbids that these cruelties should be imputed to the general body of catholics, and calls upon you to retract, in the next edition of your work, your repeated intimations to the contrary in the present.

Notwithstanding the dislike of Elizabeth, which I must necessarily feel, I have never read Heylin's account of her triumphant progress from the tower, without participating in that brilliant hour of joy. To see the descendant of a hundred kings, in the prime of life, and adorned with every accomplishment, thus suddenly pass, amidst a general and jubilant multitude, from a prison to a throne, is one of the brightest scenes that history displays. Most feelingly do I enter into it, and forget, at the moment, the multiplied miseries which it brought,

* Vol. v. c. 1.