66 Pope Pius VII. Freely have ye received, freely give," said our Saviour, but his Holiness hesitated not unblushingly to proclaim that, without money, the good offices of his church would not be dispensed. The surprise of his Holiness at the assertion that the export of money for Rome was the principal cause of the scarcity of specie in Spain-supposing his amazement to be sincere-must have originated from ignorance of Spanish history. Henry III. complained to the Cortes of Madrid, in the year 1396, of that appropriation of their gold and silver, which he denominated worse than barbarous. Similar complaints were also made by Don John I., Don John II., Charles V., and by Philip IV., in a communication to Urban VIII., in which he says that the rigorous exactions of the Dataria impoverished Spain, by withdrawing from it immense sums of gold and silver; and Pope Pius VII. could not have been ignorant that, without any previous communication with Clement XI., Philip V. published a decree, in the year 1700, commanding, under grievous penalties, that no sum or sums of money should be remitted to Rome. The name Voluntary Offering, given to the 9000 dollars, offended the pontifical cabinet, although the nation in its circumstances, at that moment, had more cause to be offended at the sacrifice. Ought it then to be accounted as nothing that the members of that Cortes, from the public funds of a nation plundered, dilapidated, and exhausted of money, by causes which were known to the world, dealt generously with a foreign prince possessed of an ample treasury, and who, from 1814 till 1820, had annually received from that ruined nation five millions, about 50,000l. sterling, for bulls of archbishoprics, bishoprics, abbacies, pensions, briefs, dispensations, and other ecclesiastical favours,besides twenty-four millions more, (about 240,000l. sterling,) for matrimonial dispensations, and other briefs of that class ?* As a matter of curiosity, let us trace the millions to which the sums amount which have been withdrawn since the sixteenth century from Spain to Rome for bulls, dispensations, and such like inventions of the papal Curia. Let the five annual millions of the last six years be taken as an average to reckon by-although a much higher rate ought to be fixed, considering the greater number of provisions and favours issued by the Curia from 1500 till 1814-and it will be seen that 1,600,000,000 reals, or 16,000.0007. sterling, went from Spain to Rome. To this must be added more than 350,000 reals, 3,500. sterling, which had annually been sent to Rome since the year 1537, for the building of St. Peter and St. John de Lateran, which, till 1820, amounted to the astonishing sum of 99,050,000 reals. Nor must we forget to swell the above amount by the 100,000 reals annually given to the Nuncio of Spain, since the concordat of 1753, amounting to 6,700,000 reals, about 67,0007. sterling, or the whole about seventeen millions, sterling, at a very diminished calculation. As, in that period we have taken, there were twenty-two Popes, each holy father drew about 800,0007. on an average from Spain. This is feeding the flock with a vengeance. If the matrimonial briefs, &c. be computed at the same rate, from 1814 to 1820, the product from Spain to Rome, since 1500, would be no less than 76,800,000%.,-about three millions and a half per Pope! It It was asserted by the Curia, that Christian nations are under an obligation to contribute to the respectful support of the Pope. But Spain discovered that such an obligation was erroneous; seeing that the Pope possessed not only the temporal revenues of five sovereignties, but also as many more ecclesiastical domains, out of which to provide for himself and all those who served him in the Curia. What is the respectful support of the pope? Could it be supposed that the Spanish government would overlook the palpable hardship of compelling the labourers and artisans of Spain to toil and labour in order to maintain the equipages, retinues, and worldly splendour of the papal palace,—and enable him to effect measures not of the most honest character, as, for instance, when Pius V. offered money to the catholic subjects of Queen Elizabeth to rebel against her, and when Leo XII. (a fact well known in Spain) sends money to support the servile and pestiferous congregation of the self-styled Junta Apostolica. But these sums, says the papal note, are exacted as a just claim, sanctioned by the usage of many years. The papal Curia felt indignant that the Cortes should designate that exaction of money by the name of a simoniacal sale. Yet such is its true name; and so the church, from time immemorial, has denominated the exaction of money for spiritual favours. How then could the heart of his Holiness be filled with bitterness at hearing those exactions thus called, when he was nothing loath to put them into execution? This spirit of bitterness arises in Rome whenever truths are disseminated contrary to the papal temporal interests: and doubtless it was that spirit which caused the prohibition of Espenceo's pious commentary on St. Paul's letter to Titus, wherein he declares the exaction of Annats to be simony: and assuredly it was the same spirit of grief which forbade the publication of the book De sacris ecclesiæ ministeriis of Duareno, because it said as much of the taxes of the apostolic chancery. That the Curia should promulgate that such doings were de justo titulo, was accordant with the maxim of the patriarch of India, Figueroa, that the greater the favour, the greater should be the price on which scandalous rule was formed the tariff of the causes admissible in Rome for matrimonial dispensations. A copy of this document was brought to Madrid in 1781, by the minister plenipotentiary Azara, in which the price of the dispensations without cause was impudently set down at about twelve times as much as the others. What greater insult could be offered to the faith and morality of the church, if it cared for either? The expression of Pius VII. Spain contributes,' proved how presumptuously the papal cabinet reckoned as an obligatory tribute, the two reals which it supposed each family in Spain to contribute yearly yearly in compliance with the most sacred title:-as sacred titles as the dreams of Pope Hildebrand, who asserted that Spain was his patrimony, or those of other popes, who laid claim to the apostolic tribute, from Pedro II. The declaration of the pope, at the end of the note, that he never would consent to the law, was of little consequence to the Spanish government, which cared not whether the Curia approved or disapproved of a law made exclusively for Spain. It would have been degradation, indeed, if the laws of the temporal power were inefficacious without the consent of the Roman pontiff. The hatred of the Curia towards the Cortes of Spain may be traced to the following causes;-the abolishment of the Inquisition, -the subjection of causes of faith to the ordinary jurisdiction,the re-establishment of the bishops in their rights,-the limitation of ecclesiastical privileges,—and the protection of the wise canons of the ancient discipline,-but above all, the depriving it of money, which was wounding it in the very vitals of its existence! That was the heinous heresy which caused the rapacious court of Rome to take up arms against the Cortes, in order to re-establish despotic rule; because it was perfectly aware that, under such a sway, it would regain the sources of wealth of which the schism and heresy of the Cortes had robbed it, and behold the return of those apostolic days, when the sweat of the devout Spaniards would afford means for the decorous splendour of the pontifical throne. His How bitterly the Court of Rome resented these affronts, is known to the world, by its machinations since the restoration of arbitrary power in the Peninsula. It may not be as well known that, while the Cortes was in existence, its anger was shown in a less potent, but not less venomous manner. A careful watch was held over the debates of that assembly. If any ecclesiastic dared to speak against the Inquisition-dared to utter the common feelings of human nature, respecting that tribunal, he was a marked man. promotion in the Spanish church was effectually checked. The Court of Rome, motu proprio et de plenitudine potestatis, withheld the bulls for bishoprics, and threw every other imaginable obstacle in the way of the advancement of the obnoxious individual. It went so far, on one occasion, as to declare that the freedom of speech, in the Cortes, was in itself a diplomatic reason for refusing to admit a minister plenipotentiary from Spain; thereby announcing that, as far as its power went, the representative system put any nation that adopted it out of the pale of civilized society. But here it forgot that Spanish pride could get the better even of Spanish devotion: for, when the government learnt that its ambassador would not be received, it lost no time in causing the Nuncio, Giustiniani, to leave the kingdom. Happy 2 B 2 would would the nation have been if, with the impertinent Nuncio, it could have got rid of all connexion with those who sent him. In this article it will be perceived, that we have taken all our facts and arguments exclusively from Roman Catholic and Spanish sources. We have endeavoured fairly to represent the reasonings of that class of adherents to the Romish church, which, though not able to shake off the trammels of its faith, cannot shut their eyes to the oppression and corruption of its heads. Such a party has always existed, and numbered among its members almost all that was honest within the pale of popery. How ineffectual have been their attempts may be seen even by the details of this article. These men mistake the character of their antagonist. If the dogmata of the Church of Rome be admitted, it is useless to fight against the pretensions of her court. Subtle scholars will understand how to distinguish between infallibility in spirituals, and infallibility in temporals-to discriminate, by nice abstractions, between the unbounded obedience due to a foreign prince, in one capacity, and the qualified respect due to the same man in another; but an ignorant and superstitious mob will not be able to enter into these scholastic refinements; and it is upon the rocks of superstition and ignorance that Rome has founded her church. Protestant countries can never be sufficiently grateful to those intrepid men, who, disdaining compromise, rejected at once all communication with the implacable and crafty enemy of all religious liberty, and left it not an inch of ground on which to plant an intrigue. Roman Catholic countries must speedily come to a similar determination ;-in Germany, they are fast approaching to a secession from the Church of Rome in every thing but name; they will soon find that even retaining the name is retaining too much. As for Spain, we do not despair. The good seed has been sown lightly-but it has been sown. The people must at last perceive, that no concession short of actual feudal vassalage will satisfy the Roman Curia-their governors are beginning to see that the exactions of the church, at home and abroad, are clogs to the prosperity of the country, without yielding them any advantage at all adequate to the injury of national interests, and the degradation it entails on themselves. If this be once clearly agreed upon-if the faults of the Cortes, their rashness, their violence, and their absurdities, be avoided-a different state of things may, ere long, be expected in the Peninsula; and, perhaps, the fabric of civil and ecclesiastical tyranny, there erected, may fall the sooner from its now imposing height. Whether our prophecy is correct or not, such should be, at least, the wish of all the friends of Spain. ART. ART. II.-1. Iu-Kiao-Li, ou les Deux Cousines, Roman Chinois traduit par M. Abel Rémusat; précédé d'une Préface où se trouve un Parallèle des Romans de la Chine et de ceux de l'Europe. 4 tom. Paris. 2. Contes Chinois, publiés par M. A. Remusat. 3 tom. Paris. WE Le temple de la mode, et des galanteries- But the labours of M. Remusat have actually done away with such prejudices against the politesse and refined, fashionable manners of the Chinese. Among them, it appears, there are elopements, and marriages, fortune-hunters, and dealers in scandal; exquisites and deep-blues, poets, and learned fops, and literary 'minnow-tritons.' There, too, mammas, in the distant hope of inducing an elegant symmetry, twist, contort, and almost disjoint the limbs of their hopeful daughters, so that the fair proportions of the body' |