volume one

viil
PEEFACE.
Obrist, -we may justly suppose that the underlings partook
of solid, tangible gold as largely as their leaders did of
power and glory.
jVIr. Macaulay, in his " Essay on Ranke's History of the
Popes," although he has scarcely touched on the Asiatic
crusades, has, with his wonted elegance, gone into questions
closely allied Avith these volumes. "We have sometimes
thought that Mr. Macaulay was like Burke, more splendid
than convincing ; and we cannot help entertaining a hope
that a perusal of this work will weaken the effects of one of
his prominent positions, and diminish the faith in his prophecy
of the perpetuity of the prosperity of the Eoman
Catholic religion . He says, " It is impossible to deny that
the policy of the Church of Eome is the very masterpiece of
human wisdom."
Unless we sink to the admission that the cunning of
the serpent is the highest of wisdom, and join that tribe
of Indians that worship the principle of evil, we, never-
theless, do deny it, and that most earnestly. There is
nothing large, nothing exalting, nothing ennobling in the
policy of Eome, to entitle it to the character of the highest
wisdom. The popes have been influenced by as many various
passions as so many other men ;
and if they employed every
art to gain honour to the papal tin-one, it was only the better
to obtain their own ends. Some were inflamed by ambition,
some by wealth, many by the hopes of enriching their
families, and many by the worst of passions and most
desradins: of vices—there is nothinoj like a continuous course
of wisdom in this. Mr. Macaulay says in the very next
paragraph, " Among the contrivances which have been de-
vised for deceiving and oppressing mankind, it occupies the
highest place."
Is this the character of wisdom ? "Wisdom is an attri-
bute of the Deity ! it is above geniiis, above knowledge
;