On this page

• Text (1)

  Note: This text has been automatically extracted via Optical Character Recognition (OCR) software. The text has not been manually corrected and should not be relied on to be an accurate representation of the item.

  • 

    Untitled Article

• Transcript

  • Note: This text has been automatically extracted via Optical Character Recognition (OCR) software. The text has not been manually corrected and should not be relied on to be an accurate representation of the item.

    Additionally, when viewing full transcripts, extracted text may not be in the same order as the original document.

    Untitled Article

    and they are ready to hail any English voice which can make itself heard in their favour . How long Mr . Cobbett will retain his present character , and what will be his next metamorphosis , will depend upon the course of events ; but we would advise the Catholics not

    to set their hearts too much upon him , lest before the echo of his praises dies away in their chapels , they find him in another and a hostile shape . These Letters , which are only the commencement of a projected work , are in the writer ' s usual style ;

    English , forcible , vulgar , droll , violent and abusive . He means , he says , to shew •* that the * Reformation / as it is called , was engendered in beastly lust , brought forth in hypocrisy and perfidy , and cherished and fed by plunder , devastation , and by rivers of

    innocent English and Irish blood ; and that as to its more remote consequences , they are , some of them , now before us in that misery , that beggary , that nakedness , that hunger , that everlasting wrangle and spite , which now stare us in the face and stun our ears at

    every turn , and which the ' Reformation' has given us in exchange for the ease and happiness and harmony and Christian charity , enjoyed so abundantly , and for so many ag * es , by our Catholic forefathers . " This is

    the calm statement of the historian ' s object , and from this we may judge how far faith may be given to his narrative . He says afterwards , with great naivete * , in the midst of one of his most stormy passages , We must keep ourselves cool .

    It is amusing to see Cobbett explaining- very minutely , and withal very gravely , the meaning of the words monk , friar , nun , hermit and pope . The " plough-hoys" and " weaverboys" for whom he wrote his Grammar , may thank him for carrying on their education a little farther by this essay at a Dictionary .

    Few Protestants will care to rescue the character of Henry the Eighth from this writer ' s wrath ; but few Catholics , we hope , will derive pleasure from the brutal manner in which he treats the name of Anne Boieyn . — Cramner ' s inconsistencies are too

    broad a mark for scorn and insult . We have no design , and , to speak honestly , no wish , to answer the au-

    Untitled Article

    thor ' s arguments in behalf of the Catholic Church ; they being arguments to those only whom no answers , much less ours , will reach . The reader may still wish for a specimen , and we will give him one from Letter I . 5 f 23 ( Mr . Cobbett numbers by paragraphs , not by pages ) :

    € C But , there is still a dilemma for these revilers of the Catholic religion . We swear" ( the italics and capitals are the author ' s ) iC on the four Evangelists ! And these , mind , we get from the Pope and a Council of the Catholic Church ' .

    So that , if the Pope be ' Antichrist , that is to say , if those who have taught us to abuse ancl abhor the Catholics ; if those be not the falsest and most malignant wretches that ever breathed , here are / we swearing upon a book handed down to us by c Antichrist '! And , as if the

    inconsistencies and absurdities springing out of this Protestant calumny were to have no end , that * Christianity , ' which the judges say , * is part and parcel of the law of the land ; that Christianity is no other than what is taught in this same New Testament . Take the New

    Testament away , and there is not a particle of this ' part and parcel' left . What is our situation ; what a figure does this part and parcel of the law of the land make , with a dozen of persons in gaol for offending against it ; what a figure does it make , if we adopt the abuse and falsehood of the revilers of the Catholic

    Church \ What a figure does that e part and parcel * make , if we follow our teachers ; if we follow Joshua Watson ' s Society ; if we follow every "brawler from every tub in the country , and say that the Pope ( from whom we got the c part and parcel' ) is < Antichrist' and the c scarlet whore' !"

    * ' Enough ! Aye , and much more than enough , " the writer goes on to say , and so say we . Contemptible as is this play upon words , the author will not , we fear , fail of his end . He writes for the thousands of Irishmen

    that are sore from 511-usage , and he will inflame their bigotry and exasperate their resentments . " Oppression makes wise men mad , " or the Catholic Association , both English

    and Irish , would never have adopted such an advocate . Could they have kept themselves cool , they would have regarded Christianity as of more value than any one form in which it is professed , and have consequently shunned the fellowship of a scorner , who , we

    Untitled Article

    48 Reviews—Cobbett ' s History of the " Reformation"

• Citation
  • Monthly Repository (1806-1838) and Unitarian Chronicle (1832-1833), Jan. 2, 1825, page 48, in the Nineteenth-Century Serials Edition (2008; 2018) ncse.ac.uk/periodicals/mruc/issues/vm2-ncseproduct2532/page/48/