Current:

Monthly Repository (1806-1838) and Unitarian Chronicle (1832-1833), February 1822, Edition 1 of 1, Page 114, Untitled Article

Page 114
Page 50
50 of 64

On this page

  • Departments (1)
    • w CRITICAL NOTICES OF NEW BOOKS
  • Text (3)
  • 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

      ( 114

      Untitled Article

      Art . I . —Additions to the Historical Memoirs respecting the English , Irish and Scottish Catholics , from the Reformation to the Present Time . By Charles Butler , Esq ., of Lincoln ' s Inn . 2 vols . 8 vo . Murray . 1821 .

      rjnHE " Historical Memoirs" have JL been already brought before the reader ( XV . 48—51 ) . This continuation consists of additional matter , and of a proposed new arrangement of the whole work , by which it may be read in chronological order .

      Prefixed to the present volumes is a chapter of upwards of 50 pages , entitled € < The Author ' s Works and some of his Reminiscences . " Here the writer may incur with the censorious , the charge of egotism , but so amiable is his vanity , that we should rejoice to hear that his " Reminiscences" were

      continued and enlarged . Amongst them we find the following candid remark upon the celebrated Code Napoleon : " The writer apprehends that the five codes of law , compiled under the eye of

      Buonaparte , though in some respects justly objectionable , will always be honpurable to his memory . He himself thought so favourably of them , as to express to a friend of the writer a wish , that he might descend to posterity with these in his hands . "—P . xix .

      Referring to a tract in his Horae Biblicae , entitled , " Historical Account of the Controversy respecting 1 John v . 7 , " he says ,

      * ' The arguments against the authenticity of the verse are very strong ; but the admission of it into the Confession of Faith presented by the Catholic bishops to Hunnerie , ( Hunneric ?) the Vandal

      King , is an argument of weight in its fa | pur . The statement of these by the winter , was allowed by Mr . Porson , the late learned adversary of the verse , to be very strong , and he promised the writer to reply to them . "—P . xxxvi .

      Reasoning on the decree of the Council of Constance relating to the «|| mty of safe-conducts granted to he-^ ShS ** - ^ * ** ' V tlie following * ' If a person ajiould now publish ,

      Untitled Article

      within any part of the united empire of Great Britain and Ireland , a work against the Trinity , and make some place beyond the seas , his residence ; and his Majesty should grant him a safe-conduct to anv

      part of his cis-marine dominions , both in going and returning , would this safe . conduct protect the offender against the process of any of his Majesty ' s civil of spiritual courts V—III . 103 .

      This hypothetical reasoning affords but a poor apology for the truce . breakers of Constance ; and the case proceeds upon the supposition , which we are astonished that so eminent a Jawyer as Mr . Butler should have indulged , that impugning the Trinity \ i still a punishable offence in law .

      He quotes from , the " Commentaire du Chevalier Folard sur Polybe , " published in 1727 , the following remarkable prediction of the French Revolution :

      A conspiracy is actually forming in Europe , by means at once so subtle and efficacious , that I am sorry not to have come into the world thirty years later , to witness its result . It must be

      confessed that the sovereigns of Europe wear very bad spectacles . The proofs of it arc mathematical , if such proofs ever were , of a conspiracy . "—III . p . Ill , Note . Of the Act of Toleration , Mr . Butler says ,

      " If we reflect on all the circumstances under which this act was passed , we must admit that the general cause of civil liberty gained by it considerably : if we view it without reference to these , we shall be more scandalized by the niggardliness than edified by the liberality of the boon which the Protestant

      Dissenters then received from the new government . "—IV . 223 . He quotes , from Dalrymple , a curious document , from whicK it appears , that King William obtained a report of the numerical strength of the three denominations of

      Church-of-Endandmen , Dissenters , and Roman Catholics , in England , in order to found upon it some measure of union . It # stated in this that the number of Freeholders was 2 , 599 , 786 , of whom the Nonconformists were 108 , 676 , and the " Papists" 13 , 856 . The following *

      W Critical Notices Of New Books

      w CRITICAL NOTICES OF NEW BOOKS

  • Citation
    • Monthly Repository (1806-1838) and Unitarian Chronicle (1832-1833), Feb. 2, 1822, page 114, in the Nineteenth-Century Serials Edition (2008; 2018) ncse-os.kdl.kcl.ac.uk/periodicals/mruc/issues/vm2-ncseproduct2509/page/50/