NOTICES OF PERU. 



335 



truth of things, or with the Christian philanthropy, or even 

 with the philosophy of which they boast? Tantsene animis 

 coelestibus irx! Shall we suppose that, irritated like all inno- 

 vators, at the inflexible rigor of the Apostolic See, in respect 

 to bad or dangerous doctrines, they omit nothing to make it 

 an object of odium and contempt ; and that they hope to make 

 the affront with which they charge the Roman Pontificate, 

 recoil upon the Pontiff himself, and upon the church that re- 

 verences him as its chief? 



I am unwilling to say it; but I may affirm, that the course 

 they take to accriminate the popes is as perfidious and tor- 

 tuous, as innovators always select; — to bring their vices in 

 strong relief, and dissimulate their virtues — to be delighted 

 with showing the excesses and abuses of power, and cast a veil 

 over the immense services rendered to civilization, to letters, 

 to science, the arts, and all humanity — to exaggerate the rigor 

 of punishments, without taking into consideration the enormity 

 nor the scandalous nature of the crimes that provoked them — 

 to give right to every body except the Pope — to give an evil 

 interpretation to the most laudable actions and enterprises — to 

 copy all that has been thought or expressed against him and 

 his authority by his enemies or rivals — to refer to the facts, 

 not as they happened in reality, but as they relate them ; or 

 to disfigure them, passing over in silence those circumstances 

 that justify them — wilfully to misunderstand the difference of 

 legislation, of customs, of the genius of the ages, and of the 

 people, always to pass sentence against the Pope, by modern 

 ideas entirely unknown in past times — and not only to deplore 

 abuses, (which is allowable), but to make it a crime for the 

 popes to have at all participated in the general spirit of their 

 times, notwithstanding that in the midst of their very abuses, 

 they so frequently showed themselves superior to their cotem- 



has the latter been able to pardon the same Pius VII. for refusing to receive 

 him near his person and court as Minister Plenipotentiary from Spain, or what 

 is the same thing, submit to his insolent and seditious discourses against the 

 Apostolic See, or allow himself to be insulted to his face, after having been 

 insulted so often in public, both in writing and viva voce. See, Su vida literaria, 

 escrita por si mismo. torn. i. cap. Ixix. y siguientes." 



