Those who declaim against the wickednefs of the clergy, feem to take it for granted, that this body of men were the authors of the moft horrid inftances of perfecution, massacre, and tyranny, over men's confciences, that are recorded in the annals of mankind; yet Philip II. Charles IX. and Henry VIII. were not Churchmen; and the capricious tyranny of Henry, the frantic fury of Charles, and the perfevering cruelty of Philip, feem to have proceeded from the personal characters of these Monarchs, or to have been excited by what they considered as their political interest, rather than by the fuggeftions of their Clergy.

As the fubjects of the Ecclefiaftical State are, perhaps, the pooreft in Italy, this has been imputed to the rapacious difpofition which fome affert is natural to Churchmen. This poverty, however, may be otherwise accounted for. Bishop Burnet very judiciously obferves, that the fubjects of a go

VOL. II.

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vernment,

vernment, which is at once defpotic and elective, labour under peculiar difadvantages; for an hereditary Prince will naturally have confiderations for his people which an elective one will not, "unless he "has a degree of generofity not common "among men, and leaft of all among "Italians, who have a paffion for their "families which is not known in other "places *.". An elective Prince, knowing that it is only during his reign that his family can receive any benefit from it, makes all the hafte he can to enrich them. To this it may be added, that as Popes generally arrive at Sovereignty at an age when avarice predominates in the human breaft, they may be fuppofed to have a ftronger bias than other Princes to that fordid paffion; and even when this does not take place, their needy relations are continually prompting them to acts of op preffion, and fuggefting ways and means of fqueezing the people. Other caufes * Vide Bishop Burnet's Travels."

might be affigned; but that it does not originate from the imputation above mentioned, feems evident from this, that the peasants of particular ecclefiaftics, and of the convents in the Pope's dominions, as well as in other countries, are generally lefs oppreffed than those of the lay lords and princes.

From what has been thrown out by fome celebrated wits, and the commonplace invective of those who affect that character, one would be led to imagine that there is fomething in the nature of the clerical profeffion which has a tendency to render men proud and oppreffive. Such indiscriminating cenfure carries no conviction to my mind, because it is contradicted by the experience I have had in life, and by the obfervations, fuch as they are, which I have been able to make on human nature. I do not mean, in imitation of the fatirifts above mentioned, to put the Clergy of all religions on the fame footing.

My opportunities of knowledge are too flender to justify that; my acquaintance with this order of men having been in a great measure confined to those of the proteftant Church, men of learning and ingenuity, of quiet, fpeculative, and benevolent difpofitions; it is ufually, indeed, this turn of mind which has inclined them to

the ecclefiaftical profeffion. But though my acquaintance with the Roman Catholic Clergy is very limited, yet the few I do know could not be mentioned as exceptions to what I have juft faid of the Proteftant; and exclufive of all perfonal knowledge of the men, it is natural to think that the habitual performance of the ceremonies of the Christian religion, though intermingled with fome fuperftitious rites, and the preaching the doctrines of benevolence and good-will towards men, muft have fome influence on the lives and characters of thofe who are thus employed. It is a common error, prevailing in Proteftant countries, to ima

gine that the Roman Catholic Clergy laugh at the religion they inculcate, and regard their flocks as the dupes of an artful plan of impofition. By far the greater part of Roman Catholic priefts and monks are themselves most sincere believers, and teach the doctrines of Chriftianity, and all the miracles of the legend, with a perfect conviction of their divinity and truth. The few who were behind the curtain when falfehood was firft embroidered upon truth, and those who have at different periods been the authors of all the masks and interludes which have enriched the grand drama of fuperftition, have always chofen to employ fuch men, being fenfible that the inferior actors would perform their parts more perfectly, by acting from nature and real conviction. "Paulum intereffe cenfes," fays Davus to Myfis, "ex animo omnia ut fert 66 natura, facias an de induftria *."

Andria Terentii-" Do you imagine there is but little difference between acting from feeling, as nature dictates, or from art?"