made by three popes his predecessors, and declared that what was done
_amiss_ by one pope or council might be _corrected_ by another; and
Gregory XI., 1370, in his will deprecates, _si quid in catholica fide
erasset_. The university of Vienna protested against it, calling it a
contempt of God, and an idolatry, if any one in matters of faith should
appeal from a _council_ to the _Pope_; that is, from _God_ who presides
in _councils_, to _man_. But the _infallibility_ was at length
established by Leo X., especially after Luther's opposition, because
they despaired of defending their indulgences, bulls, &c., by any other
method.

Imagination cannot form a scene more terrific than when these men were
in the height of power, and to serve their political purposes hurled the
thunders of their _excommunications_ over a kingdom. It was a national
distress not inferior to a plague or famine.

Philip Augustus, desirous of divorcing Ingelburg, to unite himself to
Agnes de Meranie, the Pope put his kingdom under an interdict. The
churches were shut during the space of eight months; they said neither
mass nor vespers; they did not marry; and even the offspring of the
married, born at this unhappy period, _were considered as illicit_: and
because the king would not sleep with his wife, it was not permitted to
any of his subjects to sleep with theirs! In that year France was
threatened with an extinction of the ordinary generation. A man under
this curse of public penance was divested of all his functions, civil,
military, and matrimonial; he was not allowed to dress his hair, to
shave, to bathe, nor even change his linen; so that upon the whole this
made a filthy penitent. The good king Robert incurred the censures of
the church for having married his cousin. He was immediately abandoned.
Two faithful domestics alone remained with him, and these always passed
through the fire whatever he touched. In a word, the horror which an
excommunication occasioned was such, that a courtesan, with whom one
Peletier had passed some moments, having learnt soon afterwards that he
had been about six months an excommunicated person, fell into a panic,
and with great difficulty recovered from her convulsions.

LITERARY COMPOSITION.

To literary composition we may apply the saying of an ancient
philosopher:--"A little thing gives perfection, although perfection is
not a little thing."

The great legislator of the Hebrews orders us to pull o