1809.] Account of Thomas Major's Confinement in the Bastille. 543 
surgeon came to shave me; : they still con- 
tinue in France the old appellation of bar= 
ber-surgeons, these branches being yet 
connected. He was not very expert at 
this part of his profession, or his tools’ 
were bad; perhaps it might be owing to 
the length of my beard. A little time’ 
Tonger, would have-qualified me for a Ca~ 
puchin Friar. 
He wanted todraw something from me, 
by the questions he asked, whether I had 
served in the English army. I told him, 
i was only a military man by name ; Phose 
in the English service, were very different 
sort of men; that I was one of the least 
of my countrymen. He very politely 
asked my par don; and said, he hoped it 
was no offence, it was purely for conver- 
sation. He then asked me, if I chose to 
have a confessor, (the confessor is always 
a Jesuit, and by their artifices, they had 
contrived to have this office hereditary to 
their fr: aternity). I did not half relish this 
question, lest it might bea prelude to 
something else, being generally the last 
ceremony before execution. AsI did not 
know why or wherefore I was confined, 
I could not tell whether some tricks were 
not hatching up against me; in this re- 
spect I certainly did him great injustice : 
in the thought, I told him, as I was of a 
different persuasion, I would not give any 
gentleman an unnecessary trouble. He 
said, perhaps bis company aud conversa- 
tion ‘might be agreeable to me. | thanked 
him for his civility, and begged: to decline 
it. I was therefore uninterrupted in my 
melaucholy meditations, during my abode 
there.* Had I ‘admitted one of these 
reverend -fathers to visit me, he would 
then naturally, out of pure chanity, 
have touched upon his profession, and by 
his insinuations, have laboured at my 
conversion. My non-compliance with 
his weak and fallacious arguments, might 
have been deemed as obstinacy, and pos- 
sibly might have brought me into some in- 
conveniencies. I was perfectly well ac- 
quainted with theirsystem of religion, and 
sufficiently prepared for an attack of that 
kind, especially upon their most essential 
ar ticle—Transubstantiation. 
The following aneedote is unanswer- 
able, and more expressive than. all the vo- 
lumes that have been written upon that 
subject.—A protestant gentleman, who 
 *T met him once afterwards in the street, I 
had a great inclination to speak to him; but 
the recollection of what had passed, damped 
my spirits; gave a sudden check to my curi- 
osity, and kept me silent. 
- Monruty Mac. No, 
Say: : 
186, 
had i long intimate witha Rah 
priest, was by “him frequently importuned 
to change his religion. ‘The gentleman 
at leneth asked him, if he truly, -m his 
own conscience, believed, that he had 
power to convert the wafer and. the 
wike, into the real body a and blood of 
Christ ; hereplied, that he firmly believed 
it. His friend then. told him, that he 
would bea Roman catholicimmediately, 
provided he would do one thing, which 
was, to give him a wafer; that jes would 
poison it, and if he (the priest) had * 
power to change and convert it, by his 
prayers, into the body of Christ, it was no 
longer hurtful. “Hat that, ad L am of 
your religion, The pr lest very prudently 
declined the test, conscious of his ina- 
bility to perform what he had so con. 
fidently asserted. 
This pagan priestcraft, is mentioned hy 
Horace, Sat. V. wherein he says, at Bari, 
they would | have persuaded him, that the 
sweet incense, on their altars, burnt with- 
outfire. The liquifying of St. Januarius’s 
blood, at Naples, is a remnant of that an- 
tient imposture, and still esteemed-a mi- 
racle by the Roman catholics, 
I had contracted a violent cold, attend- 
ed with a fever, occasioned by the exces- 
sive dampness of the place, insoinuch, that 
one day I was obliged to keep my ‘bed, 
The surgeon came the next day to see me, 
and acquainted the governor, that he: 
thought it requisite for me to have a fire, 
which was continued daily to the time of 
my going out. To the names of my un- 
fortunate -predecessors, .which orna- 
mented and covered these walls, I could 
not help following the example, by adding 
my own, notwithstanding theold Proverb, 
He is a: "fool, &c. In one place of the 
room, I perceived, was written, though al- 
most defaced by time, James Dubuisson 
is confined here for nothing, This’isex- 
actly my case, said J to myself; Tam not 
the only immocent man, who has felt the 
iron. hand of adversity, and visited the in- 
side of these distnal walls; drank here the 
bitter cup of affliction, and felt the dreact- 
ful effects of arbitrary power, and minis- 
terial cruelty; and though many have felt 
* ¢¢He whoon earthcou’d besoevil. . . 
To eat-his God, in hell will eat the devil.” 
; boise teat tere 
«¢ And whatsoever contradicts the sense, 
J cannot bear, and never can believe.”® 
Ld, Roscommon. 
6 Quodcunqae, ostendis mihi sic, incredulus 
ois? ve Horace. 
A Egy: Wei the. 
