etiquette. The holiness of an unholy Pope indicates no more, in the courtly nomenclature of Europe, than the grace of an ungracious Duke, or the serenity of a passionate Prince. Do we not read within the covers of our own Bibles of "that sanctified Person, the most high "and mighty Prince, James, by the grace

of God," &c. and even in America, under the authority of no General Council -under the prescription of no Established Church, is not the adulatory phraseology repeated, to this day, throughout innumerable Editions? I hope, however, it will not be long before American Editors will venture to omit the whole Apocryphal Book of the Epistle Dedicatory. I have marked the exceptionable phrases in Italics, as the words of other People, though I flatter myself

that

that my opinion of their import has been too strongly indicated to admit of their being considered as my own.

My Catholic Readers, especially in America, will demand, and deserve, a more serious apology; for the freedom with which I have exhibited the real, or supposed errors of the Church of Rome. I well know that the Roman Catholics in the United States are justly considered as good Citizens, and pious Christians, particularly at Philadelphia; where the name of Harding, their late venerable Pastor, is often coupled, in Philanthropic recollections, with that of his revered Contemporary, Benezet.— If Many of them have been heretofore unacquainted with Ecclesiastical History, and Many more have qualified, in Ame

rica, their religious, as well as their Political, creed, I beg them to remember that the revival of Historic truths, (however unwelcome) is not, wilful defamation: The same darkness involved Church, and State-Religion, and Philosophy, during the long interval between the Decline of the Roman Empire and the Revival of Letters; and the Catholics of the Nineteenth Century, are no more responsible for the Inventions of the Ninth, than are the modern Presbyterians for the intolerance of their Forefathers.

LETTER XXVII.

Journey from Rome to Lyons-Passage of Mount Cenis.

WE

Lyons, April 15th. 1802.

E left Rome, with regret, the 19th. of March, with a Vettorino who was to take us to Florence for eight Sequins, [a Roman Coin worth about two Dollars] though he had first asked as many Louis d'Ors, according to the laudable custom of the Country.

We had for company a German Rider, or travelling agent for a Manufacturing House, who could speak, for aught I know, all the languages of Europe; yet whether

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whether he expressed himself in English, French, or German, his pronunciation and phraseology was always that of his Mother Tongue.

He observed himself that it was a physical impossibility for a German to pass for any thing else; though by the way, an American is an Englishman at London, and, with a French tongue in his head, may readily pass for a Frenchman in Italy, and an Italian in France.

I have known a Frenchman that would have been taken for an Englishman in London, and I once met with an English Rider in Switzerland that might have passed himself for a Frenchman at Paris, or a German at Vienna.

When