Apostolic College, you will be our councillors and fellow-judges of the world. It will behove you to distinguish between cause and cause, between blood and blood, between leprosy and leprosy. Successors of the Apostles, you shall sit around our throne: you shall be Senators of Rome and of the world; true poles of the world, on whom the gates of the church militant shall turn and shall be managed. Consider, therefore, what great energy, what skill, what integrity, this dignity requires. Humility, not pride; liberality, not avarice; abstinence, not drunkenness; continence, not lewdness; knowledge, not ignorance; all virtues, no vice; are what this honour demands." At this time he enlarged their number, and adorned them, those who were Monks excepted, with the purple robe. The administration of government thenceforth entirely devolved on them during the vacancy of the Papal throne,-so that there could be no interregnum in the eternal city and, without any breach of canon-law, the Cardinals, acting by virtue of their temporal office, have given command to armies, and governed provinces. The "legations," or provinces within the Roman territory, are governed by Cardinals, who must, therefore, like their brethren in Rome, superintend civil and criminal courts, judging, as Pius II. told them, "between cause and cause, between blood and blood." Yet temporal dignity cannot be sustained without temporal risk; and these apostolic councillors who surround the throne of their "God on earth" must sometimes suffer disgrace and punishment, like the ministers of ordinary Kings. Thus Julius II., filled with wrath against a faction of Cardinals who had sided with a refractory state, but had hurried up to Rome on a false alarm of his death, rose from his sick-bed, put on his pontifical habit, went into "the chamber of the Kings," assembled as many Cardinals as he could collect, and, with entire solemnity, declared the Cardinals of Santa Croce, San Malo, Cosenza, and Bajosa, to have incurred all the penalties denounced on heretics and schismatics; and then, unable to snatch thunderbolts from the hand of Him who permits no mortal to smite another with a curse causeless, he invited the Spaniards to come and burn down Florence in sign of pontifical revenge. Sometimes the disgraced ministers are restored to favour; as when Leo X., more benign than his predecessor, and yielding to the instance of a royal intercessor, opened his paternal bosom to receive some of the same personages penitently. Guicciardini describes the scene. "Bernardino and Federigo entered Rome secretly, at night, without the habit and ensigns of Cardinals; and, having to present themselves next morning before the Pontiff seated in consistory, attended by all the Cardinals,-except the Swiss and English, who refused to be present, they first passed through all the public places of the palace of the Vatican, where they had lodged, dressed as simple Priests, and wearing black caps. A vast multitude was collected to see them, and every one said that this humiliation must have been most bitter torment to the unmeasured pride of Bernardino, and the no less arrogance of Federigo. When admitted into the consistory, they asked pardon of the Pope and Cardinals on bended knees, and with signs of most profound humility, approving all that Julius had done, and especially their own deprivation, and the choice of the new Pope, as made canonically, &c., &c. An authentic extract in writing was made of their confession, and received their signatures; and then, rising on their feet, they made a profound reverence, and embraced the Cardinals all round, who yet moved not from their seats. This being done, they were enrobed as Cardinals, and received into their seats in the order in which they had formerly

occupied them before their deprivation; but recovered, by this act, only the dignity of the Cardinalate, not the churches and other revenues which they had formerly possessed."

In this transaction, be it noted, there was no sacred ceremonial. Unlike the least religious act, the creation or annihilation of a Cardinal is effected without a prayer, or benediction, or chrism, or taper, or mass, or anthem. He is merely named in the consistory, or privy council of Cardinals, at the moment of election. The list of nominees being laid before them and approved, the Pope merely says, Habetis fratres, "You have brethren," reads the list, and sends the brethren red caps. Messengers salute them with the title of Eminence; and in due time they must go to the Pope at Rome, and from his hand receive the hats. In this creation His Holiness is not quite disinterested, but, at the same time, strengthens his court and replenishes his coffer,-each new Cardinal being obliged to obtain new Bulls for the benefices he held at the moment of promotion. And, besides the perquisite accustomed, Popes have often made great gain of a promotion, —as did Alexander VI., in the year 1500, when he sold red hats and gowns to the most liberal purchasers, and proclaimed a jubilee to the same intent. And now that Pius IX. finds the treasury exhausted by war, and his wretched vassals too poor to fill it again, he has created twenty Cardinals, whose fees, at least, will be an opportune contribution to supply the present need. The transaction is purely temporal, in motive, in form, and in effect.

Sixtus V. raised the Cardinalate to its highest point of efficiency. Anxious to give new splendour to the Sacred College, and to render the dignity of Cardinal more respectable, he retrenched some abuses which had grown up under the authority or connivance of his predecessors, and reconstituted that body under better regulations. The number of Cardinals had been hitherto uncertain, and he therefore fixed seventy as the highest. Some Popes had purposed to extend the number to a hundred, in imitation of the ancient Roman Senate, which at first consisted of a hundred "Fathers," perpetual council of the republic; but, learning from history that the multiplication of senators had diminished their power by reducing the standard of respect, and also recollecting that our Lord had appointed seventy disciples to go through the land, he chose this lower number, and fixed it by the charm of apostolic precedent. He also imitated the old Roman rules for excluding persons of ignoble birth or tarnished reputation. But, while the borrowing of those restrictions (which may be found in his Bull of December 3d, 1586, collected from the legists and historians) marks the identity of the Imperial and Papal Senate in the estimation of Sixtus, the desuetude of these regulations, or their impracticability, shows that modern Rome has less virtue than the city of the Cæsars could exhibit. In this Bull he further marks the character of the College as a temporal government, by comparing it to the seventy elders whom Moses chose to help him in exercising jurisdiction over Israel; and he lavishes the most brilliant metaphors to tell the world that, without the help of Cardinals, its affairs could not possibly go on.

This is the Court of Rome. Its very name, CURIA, recalls the idea of a civil administration; while the constitution of this single and comparatively small curia is utterly opposed to the republican amplitude of the original Senate, made up of several curia. The monarchy of Moses, the style of the republic, the purple and the steel of the empire, are all mingled into one executive, having no equal or resemblance in the whole world.

The Court of Rome cannot be adequately described within the limits of the present paper; but its pretensions may be stated in very few words, and these borrowed from an original authority.* They say that the Roman curia is the head-church, where, when there is any contention between the ecclesiastical and secular Judges, concerning their respective jurisdictions, they do not unite in judgment, but the greater judges alone: and this greater is the Roman Court, which judges absolutely on account of its pre-eminence and authority. (The Priests there, being Princes, have pre-eminence over simple Priests.) The Roman Court is the same as the Apostolic See, and therefore receives all the appeals that are sent to that See. The Roman curia is the fountain of right,-or, as Pius IX. and Wiseman have just told England, the only source of jurisdiction,-where the supreme Pontiff sits, who, as supreme Prince, (uti supremus Princeps,) has all jurisdiction laid up in the casket of his bosom. Where the Roman Court is, there is the Pope. The Roman Court is the seat and tribunal of the Cardinals, who are the collaterals of the Pope. All who follow the Court are comprehended within its privileges, and both they and their property are under the jurisdiction of the Chamberlain of the holy Roman Church. A Cardinal resident in England reserves, therefore, and will produce, when opportunity occurs, his claim to be exempt from British jurisdiction. He is a foreign Prince, and member of a Court which exercises its authority or exerts its influence through all the states of Europe,never relinquishing a claim, although often unable to prosecute the demand. And if he comes, as Cardinals are wont to come, in the character of Legate a latere, or Nuncio,-or if he comes with an English instead of a Latin title, and we are to call him Envoy or Ambassador from the Sovereign of the Roman states, he has, even thus, the immunities of a foreign Ambassador, and can rest a mighty leverage of power upon a fulcrum which the law of nations holds to be sacred and inviolable, as long as the Ambassador is permitted to remain. And whether an Ambassador, making such exorbitant demands, and bearing a commission to exercise the authority of an alien and an enemy here, should be allowed to remain, is the very question now before this country.

Collateral questions of immense magnitude also follow. Such is the future bearing of British diplomacy on the interests of Christianity in foreign countries, involving questions of life and death, in times of persecution, especially on the continent of Europe. Such is the administration of justice and equity in British courts, especially in ecclesiastical courts, and in matters of divorce, education, and inheritance. Such questions as these must flow incessantly from the recognition of such a personage in this land. The juridical interference of the Pope of Rome being directly or indirectly established, the dike once kept up, but for the last twentyone years weakened, must give way; and the policy, laws, and religion of England, unless there be more earnest piety and vigorous Protestant principle among us, be flooded with Popery, and rapidly assimilated to those of continental Europe. It is not from any love of politics that these points are insisted on. It would be much more agreeable to descant on the contrast between Romanism and Christianity, and set forth the higher reasons of resistance, and of zealous maintenance of experimental religion, -and this will we do, if God permit. But this paper is written under the

* Petri Ridolphini de Ordine procedendi in Judiciis in Romaná Curiâ, Praxis Recentior, pars iii., cap. 1.

impulse of a conviction that the political bearing of this appointment from Rome is not sufficiently considered, because it has not yet been understood. Therefore it has been attempted to describe the Cardinalate, as the political agency universally employed for the upholding and propagation of Popery by such methods as have been fatally successful in Great Britain and the colonies. To the errors of that system we can only oppose the weapons of an evangelical and spiritual warfare. We can only hope to overpower it by conversions, rather than by controversies. But to a purely political mission, as is this of the Cardinal, it is obviously right to oppose the legal and constitutional barriers which God provided for our fathers, and which we should preserve for the protection of our children. Archbishop and Cardinal are two officers, although they are here brought into one person. Both of them are equally noxious; but they stand on different ground, and must necessarily be distinguished. Even in the Council of Trent there was a strong opinion expressed against Cardinals having bishoprics at all; and no well-instructed Romanist would imagine that "Cardinal-Archbishop" is a peculiarly spiritual dignity. Whatever becomes of the Popish archbishopric of Westminster, it therefore behoves every Christian man who loves his country to regard this introduction of Cardinal, Nuncio, Legate, or Ambassador, as a national calamity, no less than a national sin, only to be witnessed with deprecation and with dread.

REVIEW.

THE POETRY OF WORDSWORTH.

(Concluded from page 1199.)

THUS far we have had occasion for what may seem a disparagement of the acknowledged genius of Mr. Wordsworth; and the warmest admirers of that gentleman's poetry, among whom (we are aware) may be found many of the brightest ornaments of literature and criticism, will probably suppose us to be animated by a determination to contradict the growing opinion in his favour. This is, however, very far from being the case. With the unqualified admiration of the parties alluded to, we have, indeed, no sympathy; and that for the reasons-whether sound or otherwisewhich we have deliberately set down. Our first duty is to conserve the highest interests of poetic art; and, in so doing, we have found reason for an unfavourable judgment upon our author's chief work. Mr. Wordsworth is not a poet of the highest class; and, though it would have been invidious to bring him to the severe test of comparison with the few great men, serene creators of immortal things," who are highest in the applause of mankind, if a similar position had not been challenged for him by his disciples and admirers,—it was from that circumstance perfectly right, and even desirable, to do so. Let us not be indiscriminate in our tribute of praise; or the bulk of readers, with whom (after all) rests the ultimate award of fame, will instinctively hesitate to confirm a sentence which they feel to be unjust.

The merits of Mr. Wordsworth's poetry are neither few nor small. When unrestrained by those false theories of art which we have had occasion to lament, the native inspiration of the poet flows grandly into its

appropriate channel; and, as it "wanders at its own sweet will," how charming is the diaphanous and tranquil stream of song! how redolent of nature, and her transcendent perfections! It is pleasant to remember that the bulk of our author's poetry is of this description. Perhaps four volumes, out of the seven, may be said to challenge, for originality and attractive graces, comparison with the products of almost any single author. Though all rather imbued with reflection than breathing passion, and none affording the slightest evidence of dramatic power, they are yet remarkable for variety of sentiment and corresponding interest of character. The abundant fertility of the poet's mind imparts, to his minor pieces, something of that prodigal charm which is characteristic of external nature. In the later editions we find them carefully classified by their author, and distributed under the intellectual heads to which they severally belong. This division is, however, in many instances more arbitrary than philosophical; or it is suggested by associations in the poet's mind, arising from circumstances of composition. In copying a few passages for the reader's entertainment, we shall therefore be guided by an independent principle of choice; and it shall be our endeavour to make such a selection of Mr. Wordsworth's poetry as may illustrate, more in detail, that theory of poetic art which we have already laid broadly down.

Our first shall be an example of the impulsive kind. Such, indeed; is the characteristic definition of all lyrical poetry; but the verses we are about to transcribe are the simplest of their class, as inspired by the simplest of natural objects. Before remarking further upon them, we invite the reader to join us in their perusal.

I wander'd lonely as a cloud

That floats on high o'er vales and hills,
When all at once I saw a crowd,

A host of golden daffodils;
Beside the lake, beneath the trees,
Fluttering and dancing in the breeze.
Continuous as the stars that shine

And twinkle on the Milky Way,
They stretch'd in never-ending line
Along the margin of the bay;
Ten thousand saw I at a glance,
Tossing their heads in sprightly dance.

The waves beside them danced, but they
Out-did the sparkling waves in glee;
A poet could not but be gay

In such a jocund company:
I gazed, and gazed, but little thought
What wealth the show to me had brought:

For oft, when on my couch I lie

In vacant or in pensive mood,
They flash upon that inward eye

Which is the bliss of solitude;
And then my heart with pleasure fills,
And dances with the daffodils.

To many it may seem unnecessary to enter upon a defence of these simple lines. But we are persuaded that, although their truthfulness and beauty would be very generally acknowledged, there is yet a large class of readers, otherwise intelligent and not deficient in ordinary matters of taste, who are ready to cite this little poem (among others of its kind) as an instance of that childishness and trifling which they deem to be characteristic of Mr. Wordsworth's muse. In such persons there is probably a defective sensibility, which no teaching or reflection will entirely supply; but, as unreasonable expectations have most likely contributed to their disappointment, they may be reminded with advantage of the origin and influence of impulsive poetry. We have already seen that the prime excellence of poetic art consists in its reproduction of nature in its every manifestation; and that the almost infinite variety of natural objects guarantees the perpetual resources to which art lays claim. If this were borne in mind, we should not have so many animadversions on the inutility of poetry, and the total absence of meaning in certain minor effusions. The