been shown as a rarity, which seldom, indeed, finds its way into heretical hands. I will describe, as minutely as possible, both its form and contents: it was a small cloth bag, marked on one side with the letters I. H. S., enclosing a written scrap of dirty paper, of which the following is an exact copy, orthographical errors not excepted :

"In the name of God Amen: When our Saviour saw the cross whereon he was To Be Crucified his body trembiled and shook, the Jews asked Iff he had the Faver or the ague he said that he had neither the faver or the ague. Whosoever shall keep these words in mind or in righting shall never have the faver or ague. Be the hearers Blessed. Be the Believers Blessed. the name of our Lord god Amen.

"CY. TOOLE."

Be

On the other side of the paper is written the Lord's Prayer in as curious a style of spelling; and after it a great number of initial letters, apparently all by the same hand, and probably essential to the charm.—Letters from the Irish Islands.

MUMMERIES AT ST. THOMAS BECKET'S
SHRINE.

This saint was canonized by a Papal bull, in 1173. Miracles were wrought at his tomb, a catalogue of which filled two folio volumes: at the same time, the university of Paris were publicly debating, "whether the soul of

Becket was in heaven or hell." His body was taken up, and put into a magnificent shrine, which was visited, and enriched with gifts and offerings. One hundred thousand are said, in one year, to have made their reverence; and some judgment of this may be formed, by the account given of the offerings made to the three greatest altars in Christ's church, which stood thus, for one year :

But the following year, when probably the saint's character was still more established in the world, the odds were greater, and St. Thomas carried all before him :

At Christ's altar

At the Blessed Virgin's

954

6 3

:

At St. Becket's Louis VII., of France, had made a pilgrimage to this miraculous tomb, and had bestowed on the shrine a jewel, which was esteemed the richest in Christendom-Hume.

IGNORANCE OF THE BELGIAN CATHOLICS.

The Belgians are almost exclusively catholics; and though they be, comparatively speaking, an industrious people, they are, in the country districts, proverbially

ignorant, and, consequently, extremely bigoted and intolerant. So ignorant are they, that a Highlander, of the name of Macgregor, who followed the fortunes of the exiled Stuart, officiated for many years as a parish priest, using Gaelic instead of Latin during the whole time, and was never once detected, till a countryman of his own, upon a tour through the country, was both astonished and delighted at hearing the well-known Highland song of "Bendowren" chaunted at the altar. Such a people are just the materials upon which the restored Jesuits could work with effect; and, therefore, a whole drove of these insinuating fanatics undertook a cross-planting crusade against Belgium, and had actually crossed the boundary, and began their pious work of -prejudicing the Belgians against the faith of their Dutch neighbours. William-Frederick sent them word to pack up their lumber, and be off; and, like a wise king, immediately adopted measures for rendering his people too wise for being made the dupes of such mummeries.— News of Literature and Fashion, 1825.

TRUE ACCOUNT OF THE IRISH PRIESTS, AND THE COLLEGE OF MAYNOOTH.

"An Irish Priest is almost invariably, either the son of some petty farmer, some labourer or artisan, or, perhaps, himself worked for years at some laborious, not thinking occupation; and in either case, it is usually late in life before he commences his limited course of

studies, and not until he has been habituated to the sordid feelings, the vulgar manners, and narrow prejudices of the class of life he has left. When a clown of this kind is caught, in order to be tamed for the Priesthood, he is sent, usually, at about from 18 to 30 years of age, to a preparatory school, called a Catholic academy; where the raw material is destined to receive its first manufacturing process. I have known several of these academies, and never knew one, in which the heads of the students were not filled with bigotry and their hearts with sedition; where they were not taught any art but cunning, nor any science but imposture; and where they did not lose whatever artless simplicity they might have had but as clowns, without acquiring any advantages from education. After a year or two passed in this preparatory course of studies, for upholding arrogant pretensions with fraudulent arts, the predestined impostor is translated to the College of Maynooth. Now the name of College is somewhat imposing, and may be associated in the mind with the idea of learning—with an extensive, if not a liberal course of studies; but no such thing. Ireland, often the victim of prejudice was never more cursed by bigotry, than she was by that left-legged liberality which gave her Maynooth. The very name is a burlesque upon learning; and, to any one acquainted with its nature, concentrates in the mind a term expressive of every thing contemptible and vile. Among the old Priests, educated in France, you sometimes meet a gentleman, a man of learning and of christian feelings; but among

those swarms of unfledged pedants, who issue from Maynooth-in whom you perceive a constant struggle between spiritual pride and aboriginal meanness-with demure and crafty looks-a scholastic and awkward air-vigorous limbs, disguised in the unaccustomed trammels of glossy black broad-cloth-plump and shining cheeks, puffed up with the recent luxury of station, or month mines dinners, or fastings on fish, which would feast a London Alderman-sometimes affecting gentlemanly manners, which makes their real vulgarity more disgusting-with averted eye, crouching bow, and settled smile, endeavouring to conceal the rancorous bigotry of their hearts :-among such men, I say, one would feel an unmixed sentiment of disgust and abhorrence, were they not sometimes so ridiculous as to excite laughter. Laymen were formerly educated at Maynooth; but this class of persons have totally abandoned it—none now resort there, but those intended for the ecclesiastical state; so that an Irish Priest now receives his sole education at a place which is found unfit for the education of any other class whatever. The clown who entered a dupe, comes out an impostor, having only just superadded so much bigotry and hypocrisy, to so much ignorance and superstition.

As the education of a Priest is not adapted to improve his understanding, so neither is his subsequent life calculated to amend his heart. We all know the effect of power upon the human mind, how eagerly it is sought, how tenaciously preserved, and how calculated it is to corrupt human nature. But power is a relative term,