our Lord all the primitine Christian world turned from Protes tant to Papist.

AN ENGLISH CATHOLIC. Dec. 30,

[To be concluded in our next. •]

with a more than usual want of success throughout the whole. It was the worst I have ever heard him deliver, and it raised in mé the most painful feelings for himself, and for his hearers. To entertain an assembly with a dissertation upon a science such as Geometry, requires a more than

SIR,

Academy.

MR. PALMER,

Great complaints are daily made of the imperfections of the Royal Academy of Arts in Somerset-place, and much more may be said without at all endangering the veracity of description. The inconstancy of the Academicians to their original professions, offer a specimen of tasteless ingratitude to the royal patron of the institution, who latterly beheld with sorrow his honourable desires defeated by the mismanagement and uncontroulable spirit of those, to whom he had entrusted the culture of so noble a plant.

The Lectures are the subject which have attracted my immediate attention. The Academy is intended to supply the students once a year with a course of Lectures, on Anatomy, Painting, Sculpture, Architecture, and Perspective, which are to be delivered by able Professors in those respective branches. How these purposes are answered is well known, and painfully felt, by those to whom they are delivered. The professorships in the order they stand above, are at present occupied by Messrs. Carlisle, Fuseli, Flaxman, Soane, and Turner; and this is the season chosen for the discharge of their several duties.

Mr. Turner delivered his second last night, and was attended

Turner by entering upon this, although he had no character to lose as a lecturer, lost every claim to a man of discretion. Geometry is the very basis of all the solid entertainments of our mental faculties; it may be said to be the means by which we are enabled to acquire a superiority of intellect, by it we ascertain all our knowledge of the capacities and dimensions of things; and we are enabled by its means to construct those noble works of art which spread the fame of human genius, and bear witness to future ages of national splendour, honor, and prosperity.

But, Geometry is a deep laid science, it contains a mint of knowledge, and therefore requires a store of industry in return for the treasures it yields, its glories are concealed by a sterility of appearance, which somewhat slackens the ardour of a vigorous mind, and always defies the power of an inactive one. What then has Mr. Turner to do with it? His lectures can make no impression upon his hearers, at least not a good one at any time, and it is much less in his power to lecture upon this com prehensive and elevating subject; granting he could write them; how are the blunders which he would make in reading them, (attended with a worse than school-boy stammering at words of two syllables), calculated to impress his hearers with the magnitude and excellence even

of introductory geometry?-It must be considered as a very great wrong, and as a most uncivil outrage committed upon the understandings of the youthful members of the Academy to assemble them for the purpose of experiencing an hour of painful confinement, which would be as well employed in looking at Punch's show with regard to its use; for there cannot be any in laughing away, that time which was intended to be set apart for instruction, and the acquisition of necessary knowledge. Yet this is the settled course of action to which the Academy in its present corrupt state is confined; these are records of the benefit to be derived from the Lectures of its Professor in perspective; and these are abuses which the Academicians are content to suffer; without considering, that a number of students expect to be guided by them in the paths of knowledge, and taught the method of acquiring excellence in their profession.

It cannot be asserted, that there is not a man to be found more capable than Mr. Turner of filling his place, because that wonld not meet the credit of the least learned man amongst us. There are numbers who would do honor to the task, although, not one may be found among forty gentlemen of the Royal Academy, who hold counsels, and eat annual dinners for the purpose of determining upon the best means to convince us of their imbecility.

the

The neglect with which the students are treated is felt by them, and, in this particular instance, most keenly; their indignation, indeed, can hardly be kept in silence by the law in the Academy regulations, which commands them "carefully to

observe silence during the lectures, and refrain from giving any public mark of approbation, or disapprobation." The student who walked out of the room while Mr. Turner was delivering his lecture last night, must surely have forgotten this law, and those who remained have broken it. If you, Sir, had seen them on this occasion, grinning at each other, staring at the red and black lines which were put before them, and shrugging their shoulders; and if you had heard Mr. Turner, and seen him, you would have grinned, stared, and shrugged your shoulders too; or you would have employed yourself about something more interesting at least. You might have looked at the copies of Raphael's Cartoons; or at the casts from the Elgin Marbles, placed round this room, to which the student is not admitted for the purpose of study.

The Lectures delivered by the other Professors are better; though they are not free from numerous faults. Those of Soane, Carlisle, and Flaxman, always assemble a crowd of students, artists, and others, who are able to obtain admission to them.Mr. Fuseli's too, would attract an equal attention, if he could pronounce them in English, so as to be understood; which the predominance of his native language renders extremely difficult. To return to my theme, Mr. Turner's are attended as they deserve; and I hope, if the Academicians continue him in this office, they will soon be delivered to naked benches.

And, now, as I have spoken freely of Mr. Turner, as a Lecturer, I will say something to him, as a man. In the first instance, it must be acknowledged he has considerable genius. I

would refer any one, who doubts this, to his fall of Carthage, and the Dort Packet; both of which have been lately exhibited to the public. In landscape he is, undoubtedly, the first artist of the present day. The brilliance which he produces is natural to him, and is confined to his works alone. What then can induce him to expose himself to the shame of being derided by any person of the meanest education, who may choose to apply his tongue to the worst offices it is capable of? Why will he dismantle his temple of the laurel with which nature has crowned it, or by open violence pluck the leaves, till nothing but their unfruitful stem remains! Is it for a mean remuneration, which his office yields? Will he sacrifice his personal character, for a trifling emolument, while he might reap additional fame from the powers with which nature has endowed him! It cannot be: such low desires are equally strangers to the bosom, and to the exalted mind of an artist! Therefore, we must suppose, Mr. Turner has a double capacity; and that his works, as an artist, are greatly superior to his feelings, as a man.

I, Sir, am a lover of the art, and it grieves me that an artist and a gentleman, through any passion whatever, should obtrude himself into the bad opinion of those it is his duty to cherish and instruct. X, Y.

rage, and such a reverend gravity, that he appeared to all men not only void of the fear, but also glad of, death.

After this he kneeled down, and said certain prayers, among which was the hymn Te Deum laudamus, and the Psalm In te Domini speravi. Then came the executioner, and bound a handkerchief over his eyes. The Bishop lifting up his heart and hands to Heaven, said devoutly a few short prayers, which being ended, he laid his head over the block. The executioner immediately cut asunder his neck at one blow.

He suffered June 22, 1535, being 76 years and 9 months old.

What hastened his death was supposed to be the honour conferred upon him by Pope Paul III., who, May 21, 1535, bestowed upon him a Cardinal's hat, which he was not privy_to,› much less ambitious of it. When King Henry understood that a hat was upon the road, he sent to have it stopped at Calais ; and at the same time a person was commissioned, in the King's name, to demand of the Bishop. whether he was willing to accept of such an offer from the See of Rome? The Bishop replied,' that though the dignity was far above his merits, yet he would. not refuse to serve the church of God in that or any other way. This answer being carried to the King by Secretary Cromwell, he was so provoked at it, that he swore, if the Bishop of Rochester did accept of a Cardinal's hat, he should wear it upon his shoulders, for he should have no head to carry it on. It was thus the Bishop fell a sacrifice to the favours and rage of two great Courts.

It happened in these days,

what is observable upon most revolutions; both persons and causes lay under a general misrepresentation, nor was the strictest virtue able to defend Bishop Fisher, a person of primitive behaviour, the oracle of learning, and whom Erasmus* styles the phoenix of the age; a a man universally applauded in every article of his life, excepting that point for which he died; and yet even here he shewed such contempt of all wordly advantages, that his greatest enemies were forced to acknowledge his sincerity. Yet notwithstanding the advantage of his character, to put a gloss upon the proceedings of the Court, it was judged necessary to have him represented to the people as an obstinate, avaricious, lecherous old man, and a fit object of the King's wrath and indignation; with which sort of writing Bale; Ascham, and some other virulent writers have fouled their pens,† whilst others of the party have generously removed the calumny. However, the people were so over-awed in their behaviour in his regard, that no one durst speak a word in his behalf; whereof there cannot be a greater instance than the disrespect that was shewn to his body after

* Viro omnium episcopalium vir

tutum cumulatissimo. ERASMUS EPIST. AD CARDINALEM GRIMANI, PRID. CALEND, APR. 1515, Speaking of Bishop Fisher.

+ "For my own part, I perceive no covetousness, much less such sacrileges, can be charged on FISHER'S account." FULLER'S Ch. Hist. B. 25. p. 202. "As for covetousness and luxury, he was much misrepresented by BALE, those blemishes being altogether foreign to his character." COLLIER, Eccl. Hist. Vol. II. B. 2, p. 97...

VOL. II.-No. XII.

he was beheaded; no friend he had durst approach it; it lay exposed naked upon the scaffold. from the time he suffered, till eight o'clock at night, when two watchmen hoisted it upon their halberts, and carried it into All-hallows Barking churchyard, where it was thrown naked into a hole, without either coffin, shroud, or any other ceremony becoming his dignity, or even that of a Christian.

His head was indeed taken care of, and, it is reported, first carried to Ann Bullen, who being induced by an unnatural curiosity, to view that countenance which had so often been displeasing to her, flirted her hand against his mouth scorn, one of his teeth projecting, she struck her finger against it, which razed the skin, and afterwards became a chargeable wound, the scar whereof remained as long as she lived.

His head was afterwards placed upon London-bridge, but within a fortnight, by ordhr of Council, was thrown into the Thames.

This was thought proper to do on a political account; for the clouds which had darkened the Bishop's character, were in a great measure dispersed, and the people began to express themselves very freely in his favour.

Cardinal Fisher was a stout champion of the sacerdotal order, and though he would not suffer the laity to insult the clergy, apon account of their misbehaviour, yet he was always one of the first to move for a redress, in a canonical way, and was himself, by his life and conversation, a model of a true reformation.

He wrote several works against Luther who at that time was broaching his new doctrines,

E

LECTURES on the Principles and Institutions of the ROMAN CATHOLIC RELIGION. By JOSEPH FLETCHER, M. A. Second Edition. Octavo. pp. 427. price 9s.

What uninspired Pagan, Bramin, or Bonze, who had perused the New Testament, in any of its versions, would ever imagine that each and all the of the countless varieties of sects comprised under the general dedomination of Christians professing themselves followers of the humble, the meek, the beneficent prophet, Jesus of Nazareth? that all alike proclaim their sincere belief in his doctrines and precepts, and their unspeakable admiration of his dignified conduct; his sublime example?-that each one of the many hails him as the framer of its peculiar creed,---the founder of its particular religion?--and that all, as if by one consent, venerate and uphold him as the object of their adoration,---their incarnate Redeemer, their saving God?

Should he search after the unaffected humility of demeanor which marked the Redeemer's life, what trace thereof Would he find in the general cast

of their bearing towards each other? Should he seek for the gentleness of manner, the meekness of address, which so sweetly characterized that Prophet's speech, what affinity thereto would he discern in the harsh, and shrill, and discordant tones which predominate in their controversial writings and discourses? Should he watch the workings of that kindly, warm, and expansive spirit of universal charity, which breathed in every word, and shone in every act of that incarnate God, what signs of its influence would he discover in the taunts, the reproaches, the scoffs, the revilings, the restrictions, and the persecutions which they so eagerly pour upon all who differ from themselves in principles, in opinions, in doctrine, or in conduct?

The first inference he would draw from a general survey of the multitude of religious systems, all avowing Christianity as their basis, and the Gospel as their guide; yet each one radically and essentially differing in faith and in practice, and deviating from the track pursued by the rest, would be the impossibility of so many divided and polluted streams having is