or altar, of his own temple, exhibiting himself there as God, and receiving the genuflexion of his adorers, at the very inauguration into his vicarious theocracy, might appear to be rather the dream of a visionary, than the enunciation of divine prophecy, or the avowal and boast of the guilty *.

Every human individual, of such a character and pretensions, must be an object of terrific interest. Of the whole line, however, perhaps the individual, whose life and conduct will occupy the present volume, is as fair, or average, a specimen as could be selected of a genuine representative of the

* We shall have more on this subject soon; meanwhile, there is hardly a more decisive and appalling instance of blasphemous compellation than occurs in a formal speech delivered at the Council of Lateran, assembled by Julius II., where, with much contextual impiety, that pontiff is addressed as ALTER DEUS in terris. See PONT. OPT. Max., which ought to be appropriate to Deity, in papal dedications and medals, in abundance. To the evasion of the application of apostasy to the Roman church, as expressing renunciation of the profession of Christianity, it is replied, that the Concordances, under 'apiorni, will show, that real renunciation is all which is necessary to the meaning. And it is a little remarkable, that rival popes apply the epithet apostaticus to their opponents. Grat. Decret. I., Dist. lxxix. caps. i. viii. ix. Respecting the admitted application of the name VICE DEO to Paul V., in a plate which may be seen impressed in the French original of Mornay's Mystère, d' Iniquité, see Bedell's Letters to Wadesworth, 1624, pp. 77, &c., where there is much on the general blasphemy. Barlow's BrutumFulmen, 1681, pp. 131, &c., contains one of the most ample and authentic collections. The Glossa possess every requisite of authenticity.

system, which generates the character, and is administered or governed by the person. He was neither the worst nor the best of the number. The papal system, indeed, discountenances in many instances, although in opposition to its general spirit and indulgence, the existence, or at least, publicity, of sensual vice in the person of its head—such as rendered Gregory VII. and Alexander VI. infamous. And yet, on the other hand, the characters of such occupants of the papacy as Clement XIV. could only be produced and maintained by influence foreign and adverse to the atmosphere in which their virtues shone and languished. This predicament was not inaptly expressed by the appellation given to the just named pontiff, of the Protestant Pope. But in Pius V. we have a pope, deformed by no sensuality, in either his private life or his pontificate; on the contrary, he is celebrated, and with truth, for such severity of manners, and such sanctity, as can be found in the palace of the Vatican, or under the dome of St. Peter's. There is likewise no pontiff, with whom the English nation has had so much acquaintance, and has such feeling cause to remember; unless possibly we except a con

genial predecessor, Innocent III. But the chief interest of his active and vigorous administration arises from the unrelenting and indefatigable cruelty, with which his superstition, and the principles of the church under his government, urged him to prosecute and persecute the Christianity which he esteemed heresy, and to erect upon the ashes of murdered martyrs, who triumphed over the flames which consumed their bodies, that foul and insulting mockery of Christianity, which the Council of Trent, and the creed of the pope who closed it, had enacted. His virtues, in short, were those of his education. The Inquisition was literally his school and nursery. He had sucked at her breasts; and the nutritious fluid which he drew from them, was the venom of St. Dominic, and of the tender mercies of popery when it has power and is wroth. His exertions were unbounded and

wearied; and the ubiquity of his intelligence and interference almost that of a being above, or below, a mortal.

The principal, however, and perhaps most valuable feeling, which will be excited in the mind of the reader, as he follows the present narrative, will be, fervent and ador

ing gratitude towards Him, who, by such means as pleased him best, having rescued our happy land from the ruthless gripe of a power by which it had long been oppressed and degraded, continued to defend it against repeated assaults from the same quarter, and enabled it, in the language of inspiration, to exclaim, 'Our soul is escaped from the snare of the fowlers: the snare is broken, and we

are escaped *.' Happy England, in this respect, if she knew her own happiness; and happier still, if impelled by this gratitude, she learn to value the treasure in a greater degree, and resist all the seductions of the syren of indifference, false liberality, and impiety, to plunge into fresh guilt, and deserve the judgment of losing it by her own choice or consent! The reader should not be unapprised, or insensible of the fact, that the main professed design of the original biographer of Pius is to exhibit him as an object of imitation, more especially to his successors in the presumed apostolic chair; and the improvement made of this recommendation by Paul V., to whom the last of the three biographers of our subject dedicates his production, may serve as an intelligible intima

* Ps. cxxiv.

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tion to nations in general, and to this in ticular, what they have to expect from the advancement of papal power.

The subject of the present biography was born in the town of Bosco, in the duchy of Milan, in the diocese of Tortona, and in the district of Allesandria della Paglia, from which Bosco is distant six miles. The ancient family of the Ghislieri was driven, in 1445, by the troubles of Bologna, to Bosco, where, however, their name was known still more antiently. The future pope was born January 17th, St. Anthony's day, 1504, of humble, but respectable parents, Paolo Ghislieri and Dominina Augeria; and received the name of Michele at his baptism. At the age of fourteen, disdaining the occupations for which he was designed, he assumed the habit of the Dominican order in the monastery of Voghera in Lombardy,—an order, for which his whole subsequent history betrays an instinctive predilection. Thence, for his proficiency, he was advanced to the monastery of Vigevano; and there he distinguished himself so honourably, that his superiors sent him to Bologna to complete his studies, where he became doctor, and had many pupils. He was ordained priest at Genoa in