speaking again in the name of all, implored me to hear them explain and defend their religious opinions, and no longer to treat them as heretics, promising on that condition to support me with all their forces to drive the Turks from Hungary, and either to make me master of Constantinople, or to die in the attempt. I answered, that I would not buy, at that price, all Germany and France, and Spain and Italy: so I spurred my horse and left them.' *

Charles was one of the ablest men of his age, indeed of any age. His powerful natural talents had been exercised and strengthened by the constant management of great affairs, and by constant intercourse with eminent men. Yet such are the strange delusions by which the most powerful intellects may be abused on matters of religion, that he believed that the adopting, after full conscientious enquiry, an erroneous doctrine, was an injury to God and to man, a crime and a sin, to be punished by a cruel death here and by eternal misery hereafter. With a strange confusion of thought, he considered such errors voluntary, or he would not have punished them; and yet involuntary, or he would not have feared their being implanted in him by discussion.

That error may sometimes be voluntary must be admitted. The man who from carelessness or timidity neglects or refuses to ascertain the real grounds on which he believes and disbelieves-the Roman Catholic who, for fear of unsettling his mind, will not hear what the Protestant

*Cited from Sandoval by M. Gachard, Bulletins de l'Académie Royale de Bruxelles, tom. xii. p. 251. Ier partie.

has to say-the Trinitarian who refuses to discuss his faith with the Socinian-is right or wrong only by accident. The errors of a man who rejects information are as voluntary as any other part of his conduct. But the error of those who have never had an opportunity of ascertaining the truth, and of those who, after patient and candid examination, have come to a wrong conclusion, depends no more on the will than the bitter taste of camomile or the hot taste of pepper. We might as usefully punish a man for being sea-sick as for being convinced.

Again, it must be admitted that error, though involuntary, may lead to sin. A man may sin from not knowing what is his duty, or from believing that his duty consists mainly in the performance of things really useless, or from believing that his duty consists in doing acts absolutely mischievous: in other words, he may sin through ignorance or through superstition. But in such cases the danger of the error arises from its practical nature. If error be merely speculative there seems to be no reasonable ground for imputing to it any guilt.

Now, purely speculative questions are precisely those which have been most furiously debated. They have created more hatred, more bloodshed, more wars, and more persecution, than all practical questions put together. And for this reason, that practical questions generally admit of a decision. They are debated and disposed of. Speculative questions are eternal. Their premises are generally ambiguous, often unintelligible. The discussion resembles an argument between two deaf

men, in which neither attaches any meaning to the words uttered by the other. What is the real difference between the Transubstantiation of the Roman Catholics and the Consubstantiation of Luther? The former believe that by consecration the substance of the bread and wine are changed into the substance of the body and blood of Christ. Luther affirmed that "The true body of Christ is present under the appearance of bread and also his true blood under the appearance of wine. And that that body and blood are not spiritual and fictitious, but the true and natural body which was born of the most Holy Virgin, which same body and blood are now sitting at the right hand of the Majesty of God in that divine Person who is called Christ Jesus.' *

And for the one or for the other of these opinions, each of them, we venture to say, devoid of meaning, thousands have thought it their duty to kill, and thousands have thought it their duty to die.

We have said that Charles was a man of extraordinary ability. He was also a man of extraordinary piety. Immersed as he was in politics and in wars, ruling and even administering great and dissimilar kingdoms, surrounded by enemies both foreign and domestic, managing the home affairs and the foreign affairs of Germany, the Netherlands, Spain, and Italy, providing and then commanding their armies and their fleets, his principal business, the matter which engrossed the most of his attention, was the working out his own salvation. And he

* Cited-Waddington's 'History of the Reformation,' vol. iii. p. 217.

believed the first requisite to salvation to be a correct faith. Such, however, was his conduct as to involve him in errors, the public mischief of which cannot be exaggerated; or, if there be any guilt in error, the private guilt. In the first place, his errors belonged to the class which we have termed voluntary. They were the result of his obstinate determination not to enquire. If on a march he had been told, 'Your maps are false, your guides are ignorant or treacherous; if you advance in this direction you will destroy your army - here are the proofs '-would he have refused to look at the evidence, burnt alive the informants, and continued his course?

In the second place, his errors led him not merely to reliance on useless observances and charms, but to ferocious cruelties, and, what was much worse, because much more permanent, than any death or torture inflicted on individuals, to measures which have kept in darkness and semi-barbarism one of the most energetic races, and perhaps the finest country, in Europe.

This is not the place to discuss Charles's chances of happiness in another world. We have to do only with his reputation in this. And we must say that, judging by the event, estimating him by the influence which his conduct has had over the subsequent fortunes of Europe, and indeed of America, we allot to him a conspicuous station among the enemies of mankind. He might have done more good, and he actually did more harm, than any sovereign that has reigned since Charlemagne.

A

BACON.*

[NORTH BRITISH REVIEW, August 1857.]

FTER the novelists, and after Mr. Macaulay, Arch

bishop Whately is, perhaps, the English writer of the nineteenth century who has been most read. Between his first and his last publication forty-six years have passed, during few of which, perhaps during none, has his pen been unemployed. The mere catalogue of his works fills six pages. Several of them have reached a tenth editionone a fourteenth; many are text-books in our universities and schools, and, from the elementary nature of their subjects from their containing the rudiments of most of the mental sciences and of the mental arts - they have exercised, and continue to exercise, more influence over the opinions and over the moral and intellectual habits of those who are now actively engaged in public and in professional life, than can be attributed to the labours of any other living author.

And yet there is no popular writer who has been so seldom reviewed. This may be accounted for, partly by the nature of the studies to which Archbishop Whately has

Bacon's Essays, with Annotations. By Richard Whately, D.D., Archbishop of Dublin. London, 1856. 8vo, pp. 517.