after some time of agonizing suffering, the expiring martyr and the gibbet were thrown, and quickly consumed. Here Lambert suffered for denying the real presence in the sacramen, and at the same fire were burning Barnes, Gerrard, and Jerrom, for denying the authority of the Catholic church ; while close by, for supporting the doctrines of this same church, Powell, Able, and Featherstone were ripped up alive after a momentary suspension from the gallows, and their bodies divided into quarters. Here also many others, both men and women, expired at the stake for upholding opinions, contrary to the will of their infallible king. The fires once lighted,'

were not suffered to be extinguished even under the tender hearted young Edward, for he also occasionally sent an obstinate unbeliever to the flames. And during the disturbed reign of the disappointed Mary, these fires raged with encreased fury, and many for their religious opinions alone unjustifiably suffered at the stake. Yet dreadful as were these executions, still they were far exceeded in cruelty under the mild and merciful Elizabeth, when the Catholic priest was doomed to expire by the halter, the knife, and the caldron, while the faggot and the stake were reserved for the Puritan and the Annabaptist. We would willingly quit this scene of horror; but should we hasten to the once peaceful and secluded abode of the pious CARTHUSIANS, our steps would be arrested by the sight of the mangled remains of their late virtuous prior, suspended over the gate, as a memento to the religious inmates of their approaching fate. We should soon behold eighteen of these inestimable men, sentenced to the same death which their prior had lately undergone, when three were chained in an upright position during thirteen days, and then with four of their com panions drawn upon hurdles to the place of execution, where they suffered. Their limbs were then cut off, their bowels were burned, and their bodies quartered, scalded, and afterwards placed on different buildings in the city, and on the gate of the monastery. Two others were hung on gibbets, the remaining nine were confined in prison, until, by hard usuage and various privations, they all expired. Such were the cruelties practised by Henry! and in this country they were never equalled, if we except the butcheries under his worthy daughter

Elizabeth. The scenes of carnage have however long past by, and that they may never be renewed in this or any other state, is the prayer of W. Y.

P.S. Perhaps Mr. Editor many of your readers may be aware, that your office for publishing the Catholic Miscellany is situated upon part of an inclosure which was inhabited for centuries by a long succession of holy contemplatives, and which has furnished to the church a glorious host of martyrs.

FOR THE CATHOLIC MISCELlany.

EE

Mr. EDITOR,-People wonder and wonder, how and why it is, that London should be so inundated with Atheistical and irreligious works: but really it ceases to appear surprising, when we consider how much pains are taken by the defenders of Christianity, to decry as damnable and idolatrous, far the greater number of Christians extant. Accordingly we find, in most of the publications, which are written to defend Christianity, one half is occupied with the abuse of Catholicity, and that a defence of Christianity is commonly blended with abuse of Popery. Whenever I read Dr. Watson's apology, Locke's Work's, Porteus' or Paley's proofs of the divine origin of Christianity, I can compare them to nothing but the satyr in Æsop's fable, who blew hot and cold with the same breath. What can be the motive is scarce possible to divine. The work which Mr. Horne, the curate of Christ church, Newgate street, thought fit to write as an antidote to Carlile's works, has plenty of no-popery zeal in it to recommend it to his Protestant readers. Accordingly we find that by placing Catholics and Deists together under his censure, it affords him an opportunity of retailing out a few invectives which answers his purpose better than argument or truth. How far his attacks on Catholicity are warrantable I will endeavour to shew. I cannot but admire the ingenuity of Mr. Horne in his application of scripture: but not to make the gentleman vain I beg to remind him that one much older, and much wiser than himself,

and a master of arts too, was at least equally ingenious in the application of scripture on a visit he paid to our blessed Saviour after his fasting forty days in the desert, and if he said nothing about the abstaining from meats so very applicable to the occasion, Mr. Horne must excuse him, as he was under a disadvantage that Mr. Horne is not, viz. the necessity of confining himself to the pages of the old Testament.

In order to lay open the beauties of Christianity in the most engaging light, Mr. Horne wishes us to believe that before the year fifteen hundred, the whole Christian world were followers of one (the pope), who opposeth and exalteth himself above all laws, human and divine, sitting as God in the church of God, and shewing himself that he is God, whose coming is after the working of satan, with all power, and signs, and lying wonders, and commanding to abstain from meats; and at this present day, far the greater part of the Christian world are followers of this same beast, and false prophet, and harlot of Babylon. Surely the incarnate monster, the late Pius the seventh, must have sat for his picture to this master of arts, to enable him to convince this nation of the truths of Christianity. Who will dare profess himself an infidel after such a beautiful display of Christian faith and Christian morality. But here is the apostacy! It only then remains for Mr. Horne to point out the precise time, when the church of Rome fell off from the one, holy, catholic, and apostolic church of Protestantism! and I am convinced that after that, not a single infidel will remain within the united kingdom to call forth the future energies of this master of arts. Erit mihi magnus Apollo.

Crutched Friars, Sept. 10th, 1823.

W. R.

FATHER SOUTHWELL.

Ir was the misfortune of father Southwell, to live in an age when neither religion, truth, talent, nor even innocence, were sufficient protection against the fury of the reformers (so called). He lived in the reign of Elizabeth, and possessed a richness of imagination, and a felicity of versification, which eminently en

titles his productions to the regard of those who are lovers of real poetry. His melancholy life, and his dreadful fate too, would spread a deep interest over his works, even were they destitute of merit, which however is far from being the case; Father Southwell, who was called the English Jesuit, was, confined three years in the Tower, during which time he was put to the rack no fewer than ten times, with a view to extort from him a disclosure of certain conspiracies, in which it was supposed he was implicated. At the end of this period, he wrote to Cecil the lord treasurer, humbly entreating his lordship, that he might either be brought to trial to answer for himself, or that at least his friends might haue leave to visit him. The treasurer answered, "that he if was in such haste to be hanged, he should quickly have his desire." Shortly after, he was removed to Newgate, tried for remaining in England contrary to the statute, and convicted and executed at Tyburn in the year 1595, in the thirty-fifth year of his age. Thus fell a man who was an honour to his religion and his country, whose only crime was being a Catholic, and following the command of his great Lord and Master, in preaching that religion with which Christ promised to remain and teach all truth to the end of the world.

FOR THE CATHOLIC MISCELLANY.

MR. EDITOR, It is unquestionable that our countrymen in general mean well in their religious and political pursuits; but, carried away by an unbounded pride and spirit of independency, they too often refuse to hear the arguments of those who differ from them, and even to examine the grounds on which their own opinions rest. That the English are a religious people is demonstrated by the numberless sects that exist among them, and by the ardour with which they respectively pursue their several systems; but this very diversity proves that they are led by their passions rather than by a love of truth, as Christ could not have left the true church without evidence of her veracity.

To speak now of politics, what public meetings are not held

throughout the kingdom to inflame its inhabitauts, and to col lect their money in aid of a Spanish party who now hold their king in chains, and threaten him with death in the event of their being subdued; and this, sir, under the supposition that the party in question forms the bulk of the Spanish nation! What delusive speeches and essays are we not forced to hear and to read in support of this glaring falsehood! Even they, Mr. Editor, who have been the most forward and active in suppressing the frantic and irreligious fury of Jacobinism in France and Italy, [Such as the noble lord of Dutch extraction, who commanded his Majesty's land and sea forces round the Mediterranean in the last war] can head the assemblies I have mentioned, in order to raise up the jacobites of Spain and Portugal to complete the downfall of religion and social order in their own countries, and to bring about that downfall again in France and the continent in general.

That the bulk of the Spanish nation does not hold with the revolutionists of their country, and that they prefer their ancient government, with all its defects, to the late pretended reformation of it, is plain from the manner in which the French, though the natural enemies of the Spaniards, have been received by the latter in every province, town, and city, into which they have entered; it is plain from the defection, not of a few soldiers, but of whole regiments, garrisons, and armies, to the royal cause throughout the country in question, and from that of the very leaders and generals of the revolutionists, though their own power and fortune was inseparably connected with the success of the revolution; I allude to O'Donnel, Asbibal, Morillo, Ballasteros, and a dozen other superior officers. It is impossible that the Spanish jacobins should have proved unable to fight, and even to conquer, with the natural advantages they possessed in their own country, if the population of it aided their cause. I say nothing here of Portugal, where a counter-revolution, effected by one spontaneous movement of all classes of the population, demonstrated their abhorrence of jacobinism in all its forms, except that the movement in question illustrates the state and disposition of the neighbouring Spanish nation.

But, Mr. Editor, whatever inconsistence there is in English