1826.] On the Suppression of Monastreies in England. 285 
rising, ‘refreshed’ and invigorated, from the sleep of ages. The taking of Con- 
stantinople by the Turks, and the subversion of the Eastern, empire, about this 
time, dispersed the expelled Greeks over Italy; and their language, science 
and ‘taste, which were not yet lost, had, under the fostering patronage of the 
De’ Medicis, revived the arts in that country, from whence they were rapidly 
spreading into our own. The very bounds of the world seemed to be enlarged 
at this time, at if in unison with the expanding views of its inhabitants ; and the 
discoveries of both Indies, towards the close of the fifteenth century, were 
amongst the signs announcing that great moral phenomenon which was about 
to take place. 
It was in this state of renovated Europe, it was at this moment, marked as 
peculiarly appropriate by the concurrence of so many propitious circumstances, 
that Henry VIII. suppressed the monastic institution in England, and banished 
the Papal tyranny, of which it had been the efficient imstrument and firm sup. 
port, from the land. It was to these excited energies and awakened powers 
that, by the dissolution of monasteries, he let loose the stores which had been 
thus miraculously preserved, and poured forth their accumulated streams of 
learning. 
Into the more narrow and partial causes, of a personal or political nature, 
which led directly to this event, at the particular moment, we are not con- 
cerned, in an inquiry like the present, to examine. It is sufficient to observe 
that the sack of Rome by the constable of France, the artful ambition of the 
emperor Charles, the timidity and duplicity of Clement VII., the overbearing 
tyranny of Henry VIII., and the unwearied piety of our own Cranmer, were 
all made to work, along with mightier principles and elements more universal 
and permanent to this high and happy end. It may not, however, be improper 
shortly to notice, in reference to the subject immediately before us, that, after 
Henry’s breach with the sovereign Pontiff, he could not, without manifest and 
imminent danger, have permitted the existence in his dominions of incorpo- 
rated bodies of men, possessed of unparalleled wealth and influence, exempted 
from many responsibilities, linked by one common bond, not only to each 
other, but to their own powerful order throughout the whole of Christendom ; 
and whose interest and principles alike led them to rebel against his newly assumed 
authority as supreme head of the church, and to nourish discontent and disaf- 
fection, by all the artifices of priestcraft, throughout the land. With this 
passing justification of Henry’s measure, on the ground of policy and expe- 
diency, we return to the more extended and philosophical view of the 
question. 
The floodgates of science and knowledge were by this event opened in 
England, and the rush of their waters was magnificent. With a rapidity pro- 
portioned to the length of their confinement they spread over this favoured 
Tand, bearing down in their majestic course, all the landmarks and_ fabrics 
which superstition had reared; while, safe and high upon their billows, floated 
that purer and better faith, which, like Moses amongst the Egyptians, had been 
unconsciously fostered by its foes, and, like him, brought with it at length a 
‘new hope to a new Israel ! 
