Europe, and favoured by advantageous privileges, raised this league to the rank of a real power. Not content with the influence it enjoyed in its own country, and in Sweden, Norway, and Denmark, it extended it even to England and to Russia. London and Novogorod admired the brilliant establishments of those bold merchants, who by means of their wealth, extorted exorbitant privileges, had their special magistrates, and constituted an independent state in the heart of foreign countries.

"In France, the industrial classes were organized in a manner better to resist the elements of dissolution to be found in their bosom; and it is precisely to a king venerated by the Church on her altars, we are indebted for this reform so prolific in results. The Ordinance for the trades of Paris,' powerfully favoured the rise of industry, by rendering it at once more moral and more intelligent; and whatever might be the abuses introduced into that organization, we cannot deny that Saint Lewis satisfied a great want, by regulating trades in a manner the best suited to the backward state of those times.

"And what shall we say of Italy, that then contained in its bosom the powerful Republics of Venice, Florence, Genoa, and Pisa? The magnitude to which commerce and industry had attained in that Peninsula, and the consequent development which the democratic element had there acquired, almost exceed belief. If the influence of the Catholic Church had been so oppressive-if the breath of the Roman Court had been fatal to the improvement of nations, would not those effects have been more deeply felt, where that influence was most proximate ?"-pp. 151-53, vol. iii.

After analyzing the different elements of the Christian monarchy, M. Balmes shows how that monarchy is essentially of a mixed or temperate nature, and that amid all the diversity of national laws, customs, and manners, we everywhere find among the Catholic nations of the middle age a royalty more or less circumscribed by assemblies composed of the clergy, nobility, and third estate, that, under the name of Cortes, States-General, Parliaments, and Diets, vote the subsidies, and have a share in the passing of laws. He proves then how Protestantism. destroyed the balance of power in the political constitution of the different states.

The preponderance which the force of circumstances had towards the close of the fifteenth century imparted to royalty, the Catholic clergy would by their influence have gradually diminished, but for the violent revolution that broke out in the following age. Many of the barriers against despotism which the Catholic Church had erected,

Protestantism utterly overturned; others it weakened and undermined. The author proceeds to observe, that the rise of the Reformation was simultaneous with the establishment of absolutism in the countries where it triumphed, and in the Catholic countries over which it exercised an indirect influence.

In the following passage, which must be our concluding extract, he ably demonstrates how the clergy was essentially the mediator between all classes, and how fatal to liberty has been the enfeeblement of its political power.

Speaking of the struggles between the different classes of society at the close of the fifteenth century, he says,

Precisely at this period, the democratic element was in a situation full of hope, but at the same time encompassed with danger. In order to preserve its acquired influence, and augment its power, it was necessary for it to proceed with great caution and circumspection. Royal authority had already attained considerable strength; and as part of that strength had been obtained by its espousing the cause of the People in its disputes and struggles with the Nobility, Royalty then stood forward as the natural protector of popular interests. This title, doubtless, belonged to it with some truth; but it was not the less true that Kings could avail themselves of a like circumstance to stretch their prerogative beyond all limits, at the cost of the rights and liberties of the people.........

66

The people then possessed many means of defence; but if it were isolated, and placed in opposition to the throne, those means would be found too weak to insure it the victory. Knowledge was no longer, indeed, the exclusive patrimony of any privileged class; but we must allow that it was not sufficiently powerful to create a public opinion, capable of controlling the affairs of State. The Press had already begun to put forth its fruits; but it was not developed in a way to impart to ideas that degree of mobility and rapidity, which they have acquired in subsequent times.........

"Thanks to the development of arts and trade, a new species of wealth was formed, which was necessarily to become the patrimony of the people: but those arts and that trade were yet in a state of infancy....

"Looking to the course of things, and to the rise of Royalty on the ruins of Feudality, the only suitable way to repress the power of the Sovereign, until such time as the Democracy were sufficiently strong to extort respect, was the union of the Aristocracy with the People. But this coalition was not a thing easy to be obtained, since between the Aristocracy and the People there was so much rivalry and animosity-a rivalry which to a certain. degree was inevitable, on account of the opposition of their respec

tive interests. Yet we must remember that the Nobility was not the sole Aristocracy; there existed another still stronger and more powerful, to wit, the Clergy. The latter class had then all that influence and ascendancy, which moral united to material resources, afford. In fact, besides the religious character that rendered it respectable and venerable in the eyes of the People, it possessed withal abundant wealth, whereby on one side it was easy to win influence and command gratitude; and on the other to make itself feared by the great, and respected by monarchs. Now here was the capital error of Protestantism. To destroy at that moment the power of the Clergy, was to accelerate the complete victory of absolute power, leave the people without protection, the sovereign without a check, the aristocracy without a bond of union, without a principle of life; it was to prevent the three elements, the monarchical, the aristocratic, and the democratic, from duly blending in order to form the temperate Government, towards which almost all the nations of Europe seemed to tend."-pp. 183-84, vol. iii.

M. Balmes, in an admirable chapter, investigates the special and more immediate causes, that brought about the ruin of popular institutions in Spain. These he states to be, first, the precocious and unduly large development of those institutions; secondly, the formation of the Spanish people out of the successive reunion of very heterogeneous members, having all, too, institutions extremely popular; thirdly, the establishment of a central power in the midst of the provinces, where those forms were the most restricted, and where the royal authority was most dominant; fourthly, the excessive abundance of wealth, of power, and of glory, that then encompassed the Spanish nation, and lulled it to sleep in the arms of its prosperity; and fifthly, the military attitude of the Spanish monarchs at that critical period, when the contest between the Crown and the People was to be decided.

In his interesting development of this subject, it will be of course impossible for us to follow our author.

The concluding portion of his excellent work is devoted to a comparison of the intellectual influence of the Catholic and Protestant Churches. He proves the immense superiority of the services, which the former has rendered to mankind in the several departments of the fine arts, the belles Lettres, ancient philology, criticism, history, metaphysics, religious mysticism, and the philosophy of history.

In conclusion, we beg leave to recommend this valuable book to the earnest attention of our readers. Those Catholics especially, who from their circumstances and social position are called upon to ground themselves in the science of Christian Politics, cannot have a safer and more enlightened guide, than M. Balmes. The work is in an eminent degree a reproduction of that sterling old Spanish sense, of which, alas! so few traces had remained in our time. Literary productions of this kind never stand isolated-they are ever the tokens or forerunners of a regeneration of the public mind. Let us hope that this intellectual renovation may not be unaccompanied by a political regeneration for which our author, as a publicist, has already achieved so much. Let us hope that the golden opportunity lately presented to Spain, may not be lost through the frivolity of the present Court;-that in their revived love for the Catholic faith, and for the old free political institutions of their fathers, her noble people may find the clue to lead them out of the long labyrinth of factious intrigue and reactionary absolutism, and of democratic anarchy and military despotism, in which now for forty years it has been wandering.

ART. VIII. Journal in France in 1845 and 1848. With Letters from Italy in 1847, of things concerning the Church and Education. By THOMAS WILLIAM ALLIES, M.A., Rector of Launton, Oxon. London, Longmans: 1849.

WE

E cannot but regard the publication of this important and interesting volume as one of the most remarkable facts of these remarkable times. Mr. Allies is the well-known author of a work in defence of the Anglican Church, which with not a few members of his commuion is made, we believe, the ground, or the plea, for adhering to it. Certainly among those who have taken part in what used to be called the Oxford Movement, Mr. Allies may be esteemed a leader. His former work, whatever might be thought of its conclusions, is universally allowed to exhibit great marks of ability, and a very considerable amount of research upon the subject

VOL. XXVI.-NO. LI.

16

to which it relates. Indeed, of those who have written in defence of Anglicanism, few have less reason to complain of hard treatment at the hands of English Catholics, and especially converts, than Mr. Allies. From whatever quarter his former book has been noticed, he has received, to the best of our knowledge, the most ample proofs of courtesy, consideration, and forbearance. It is therefore with some pain, as well as surprise, that we read the ungracious and ungenerous remarks upon English Catholics, and especially late converts, at page 298 of the volume before us. These remarks constitute one of the very few blots in this otherwise most candid and enlightened work. It is not right to say without proof or specification, that

"The moment they" (the converts) "had left us, it seemed their object to depreciate to the utmost the Church of England ........they delight to condemn us en masse in the most harsh and insulting manner."-p. 298.

No single publication of converts that we can call to mind, is such as to justify this description, or excuse (if indeed any thing can excuse) this imputation of unworthy feelings; while in "Loss and Gain," for example, in articles which have appeared from time to time in this Review, and in publications to which the name of converts is attached, there are evidences not merely of a disposition to deal fairly with the Established Church, but of a real sympathy with many of its members and some of its principal institutions.* That which will in vain be sought from converts or any other Catholics, and which it would surely be most unreasonable to expect from them, is any allowance of the claim of the Church of England to be accounted an integral part of the great Catholic body. Upon this subject all the converts had of course made up their minds, before, at so painful a cost, they renounced the communion of their birth, education, friends, interests, and connexions. They did not choose the Catholic Church as mere matter of preference, but submitted to Her in order to save their souls. And since they have been her happy and devoted children, they have probably seen no reason to alter or

We may instance especially some articles on "Education," in the Rambler, and a recent one on the "Plymouth Sisterhood,” in the Tablet.