blunted by the opposition of
prejudices. Mrs. Piozzi tells us, that, when he was at Rouen, "he conversed
with the abbe Rofette about the destruction of the Jesuits, and condemned
{145} it loudly, as a blow to the general power of the church, and likely
to be followed with many and dangerous innovations, which might, at length,
become fatal to religion itself, and shake even the foundations of
Christianity." With Dr. Johnson let me place Dean Kirwan, who often
declared, that he imbibed the noble ambition of benefiting mankind in the
college of the English Jesuits, at St. Omer's[57].

BAUSSET.

Bausset, bishop of Meth, in a Life of Fenelon, published so lately as the
year 1809, passes a comprehensive and eloquent eulogium on the society, of
which the following sentences form but a part: "Wherever the Jesuits were
heard of they preserved all classes of society in a spirit of order,
wisdom, and consistency. Called, at the commencement of the society, to the
education of the principal families of the state, they {146} extended their
cares to the inferior classes, and kept them in the happy habits of
religious and moral virtue."--"They had the merit of attracting honour to
their religious character, by a severity of manners, a temperance, a
nobility, and a personal disinterestedness, which even their enemies could
not deny them. This is the fairest answer they can make to satires, which
accuse them of relaxed morality."--"These men, who were described as so
dangerous, so powerful, so vindictive, bowed, without a murmur, under the
terrible hand that crushed them[58]."

JUAN AND ULLOA.

The very names of these travellers suggest the virtues and the praises of
the Jesuits. It was from their volumes that Robertson took his account of
the settlement of Paraguay, and I do not think it necessary here to extend
their testimony.

{147}

RICHELIEU.

When the four ministers of Charenton presented very heavy accusations
against the Jesuits to Louis XIII, cardinal Richelieu answered them all:
for the sake of brevity, I shall extract only his reply on the charge of
regicide. "As to what you say of their doctrine, with respect to the power
they attribute to the pope over kings, you would have spoken very
differently of it, if, instead of learning it from the _private writings_
of a few particulars, you had collected it from the mouth of their general,
who, in the year 1610, made a public and solemn declaration, by which he
not onl