1. Early means used to discredit the took. Different of objectors.—It was anticipated that persons who know little or nothing of the changeless spirit and uniform practices of the Papal ecclesiastics, would doubt or deny the statements which Maria Monk has given of the Hotel Dieu Nunnery at Montreal. The delineations, if true, are so loathsome and revolting, that they exhibit the principles of the Roman priesthood, and the corruption of the monastic system, as combining a social curse, which must be extinguished for the welfare of mankind.
From the period when the intimations were first published in the Protestant Vindicator, that a Nun had escaped from one of the Convents in Canada, and that a narrative of the secrets of that prison-house for females was preparing for the press; attempts have occasionally been made to prejudice the public judgment, by fulsome eulogies of the Roman Priests and Nuns, as paragons of immaculate perfection; and also by infuriated denunciations and calumnies of all persons, who seriously believe that every human institution which directly violates the constitution of nature, and the express commands of God, must necessarily be immoral.
The system of seclusion and celibacy adopted in Convents is altogether unnatural, and subverts all the appointments of Jehovah in reference to the duties and usefulness of man; while the impenetrable secrecy, which is the cement of the gloomy superstructure, not only extirpates every incentive to active virtue, but unavoidably opens the flood-gates of wickedness, without restraint or remorse, because it secures entire impunity.
Since the publication of the "Awful Disclosures," much solicitude has been felt for the result of the exhibitions which they present us: but it is most remarkable, that the incredulity is confined almost exclusively to Protestants, or at least, to those who pretend not to be Papists. The Roman Priests are too crafty to engage directly in any controversy respecting the credibility of Maria Monk's narrative. As long as they can induce the Roman Catholics privately to deny the statements, and to vilify Christians as the inventors of falsehoods concerning "the Holy Church and the Holy Priests!" so long will they laugh at the censures of the Protestants; and as long as they can influence the Editors of political papers vociferously to deny evangelical truth, and to decry every attempt to discover the secrets of the Romish priestcraft as false and uncharitable, so long will the Jesuits ridicule and despise that incredulity which is at once so blinding, deceitful, and dangerous.
The volume entitled "Awful Disclosures by Maria Monk," has been assailed by two classes of Objectors. Some persons affirm that they cannot, and that they will not believe her narrative, because it is so improbable. Who is to judge of the standard of improbabilities? Assuredly not they who are ignorant of the whole subject to which those improbabilities advert. Now it is certain, that persons who are acquainted with Popery, are generally convinced, and readily agree, that Maria Monk's narrative, is very much assimilated to the abstract view which a sound judgment, enlightened by the Holy Scriptures, would form of that antichristian system, as predicted by the prophet Daniel, and the apostles, Peter, Paul, and John.
2. The question of Probability.—But the question of probabilities may be tested by another fact; and that is the full, unshaken conviction, and the serious declaration of many persons who have lived in Canada, that Maria Monk's allegations against the Roman Priests and Nuns in that province, are precisely the counterpart of their ordinary character, spirit, and practice. There are many persons now residing in the city of New York, who long dwelt in Montreal and Quebec; and who are thoroughly acquainted with the situation of affairs among the Canadian Papists—and such of them as are known, with scarcely a dissenting voice, proclaim the same facts which every traveller, who has any discernment or curiosity, learns when he makes the northern summer tour. It is also indubitable, that intelligent persons in Canada generally, especially residents in Montreal and Quebec, who have no inducement either to falsify or to conceal the truth, uniformly testify, that the nunneries in those cities are notorious places of resort for the Roman Priests for habitual and unrestrained licentiousness; that, upon the payment of the stipulated price to the Chaplain, other persons, in the disguise of Priests, are regularly admitted within the Convents for the same infamous purpose; and that many Infants and Nuns, in proportion to the aggregate amount of the whole body of females, are annually murdered and buried within their precincts. All this turpitude is as assuredly believed by the vast majority of the enlightened Protestants, as well as by multitudes of even the Papists in Montreal and Quebec, as their own existence; and judging from their declarations, they have no more doubt of the fact, than they have of the summer's sunshine, and the winter's frost and snow. Of what value, therefore, is the cavil of ignorance respecting improbabilities?
But it is also objected, that the British government would not tolerate such a system of enormous wickedness. To which it is replied, that the inordinate licentiousness of the Roman Priests and Nuns in Canada, is demonstrated to be of long standing by the archives of that Province, as may be seen in Smith's History of Canada; year 1733, Chapter 5, p. 194.
The author of that work is Secretary of the Province; and his narrative was compiled immediately from the public documents, which are under his official guardianship and control. He thus writes:—"The irregularities and improper conduct of the Nuns of the General Hospital had been the subject of much regret and anxiety. Contrary to every principle of their institution, they frequently accepted of invitations to dinners and suppers, and mixed in society, without considering the vows which restricted them to their Convent. The king of France directed a letter, Maurepas' letter of April 9, 1733, to be written to the Coadjutor of Quebec, by the minister having the department of the Marine; importing that the king was much displeased with the Nuns—that regularity and order might be restored by reducing the nuns to the number of twelve, according to their original establishment—and that, as the management and superintendence of the community had been granted to the Governor, Prelate, and Intendant, the Coadjutor should take the necessary measures to prevent them from repeating conduct so indecent and improper."
The entire affair seems to have been this; that the Nuns of Quebec at that period preferred the gallant military officers, and their bewitching festivities, to the coarser and less diversified indulgences of the Jesuits; upon which the latter murmured, and resolved to hinder the soldiers from intruding into their fold, and among the cloistered females, to visit whom they claimed as their own peculiar privilege, inseparably attached to their priestly character and ecclesiastical functions. It is infallibly certain that after a lapse of 100 years, neither the Jesuits nor the Nuns in Canada, are in the smallest particle reformed.
The British government, by the treaty made upon the surrender of that province to them, guarantied to the Papal Ecclesiastics, both male and female, their prior exemptions and special immunities. Many of the officers of the Government in Canada, who have long resided there, are anxious to see the nunneries and their adjuncts totally extirpated; and it may be safely asserted that they know the character given of those institutions by Maria Monk is a graphical picture of their continuous doings.
The British government, for the purpose of retaining their supremacy over the province, have not only connived at those irregularities, but have always enjoined that the public sanction should be given to their puerile shows, and their pageant, pompous processions by the attendance of the civil and military officers upon them, and by desecrating the Lord's day with martial music, &c. In this particular affair, the executive officers of the Provincial Government are fully apprised of all the substantial facts in the case; for an affidavit of the principal circumstances was presented to Mr. Ogden, the Attorney General of Canada, and to Mr. Grant, another of the King's counsellors: and afterward Maria Monk did undergo an examination by those gentlemen, in the house of Mr. Grant, at Montreal, in the presence of Mr. Comte, one of the superior order of priests of that city; and of another Priest, believed to be either Phelan or Dufresne, who was concealed behind the sofa.
It is also incontrovertible, that the nominal Papists in Canada, who, in reality, are often infidels, notwithstanding their jocose sneers, and affected contempt, do generally believe every title of Maria Monk's narrative. This is the style in which they talk of it. They first, according to custom, loudly curse the authors; for to find a Papist infidel who does not break the third commandment, is as difficult as to point out a moral Roman Priest or a chaste Nun. They first swear at the author, and then, with a hearty laugh, add the following illustration:—"Everybody knows that the Priests are a jolly set of fellows, who live well, and must have license, or they would be contrary to nature. They have the privilege of going into the nunneries, and they would be great fools if they did not use and enjoy it!" Such is the exact language which is adopted among the Canadians; and such are the precise words which have been used by Canadian gentlemen in New York, when criticising Maria Monk's volume. It affords stronger proof than a direct attestation.
The other class of persons who verily believe the "Awful Disclosures," are the religious community in Canada. We think that scarcely a well-informed person can be discovered in Montreal or Quebec, who does not feel assured, that the interior of the Hotel Dieu Nunnery is most faithfully depicted by Maria Monk. Many persons are now inhabitants of New York who formerly resided in Montreal, some of whom have been upon terms of familiar intimacy for years with those Roman Priests, who are specified as the principal actors in the scenes depicted in that book; and they most solemnly declare, that they have no doubt of the truth of Maria Monk's narrative.
Mr. Samuel B. Smith, who has been not only a Roman Priest, but has had several cages of nuns under his sole management, questioned Maria Monk expressly respecting those affairs, customs and ceremonies, which appertain only to nunneries, because they cannot be practiced by any other females but those who are shut up in those dungeons; and, after having minutely examined her, he plainly averred that it was manifest she could not have known the things which she communicated to him unless she had been a nun; not merely a scholar, or a temporary resident, or even a novice, but a nun, who had taken the veil, in the strictest sense of the appellative. This testimony is of the more value, because the conclusion does not depend upon any conflicting statements, of partial or prejudicial witnesses, but upon a fact which is essential to the system of monachism; that no persons can know all the secrets of nunneries, but the Chaplain, the Abbess, and their accomplices in that "mystery of iniquity." Mr. Smith's declaration in one other respect is absolutely decisive. He has declared not only that Maria Monk has been a nun, but also that the descriptions which she gives are most minutely accurate.
Mr. Smith also testifies that the account which Maria Monk gives of the proceedings of the priests, the obscene questions which they ask young females, and their lewd practices with them at auricular confession, are constantly exemplified by the Roman Priests; and he also confirms her statements, by the testimony of his own individual experience, and actual personal acquaintance with the Canadian nunneries, as well as with those in the United States, and especially of that at Monroe, Michigan, which was dissolved by Mr. Fenwick, on account of scandalous impurity, several years ago.
Mrs. ——, a widow lady now in New York, who formerly was a Papist in Montreal, and was recently converted to Christianity, solemnly avers, that the Priest Richards himself, conducted her from the Seminary through the subterraneous passage to the nunnery, and describes the whole exactly in accordance with the statement of Maria Monk.
Mr. Lloyd, who was in business a number of years adjacent to the nunnery, and who is intimately acquainted with those priests, their characters, principles, and habits, avows his unqualified conviction of the truth of the "Awful Disclosures."
Mr. Hogan, who was eighteen months in the Jesuit Seminary at Montreal, and in constant intercourse and attendance upon Lartigue and his accomplices, unequivocally affirms, that Maria Monk's complex description of those Priests are most minutely and accurately true.
One hundred other persons probably can be adduced, who, during their residence in Canada, or on their tours to that province, by inquiries ascertained that things in accordance with Maria Monk's delineations are the undoubted belief of each class of persons, and of every variety of condition, and in all places which they visited in Lower Canada.
Mr. Greenfield, the father of the gentleman who owns the two steamboats on the river St. Lawrence, called the Lady of the Lake, and the Canadian Eagle, who is a citizen of New York, avows his unqualified assent to all Maria Monk's statements, and most emphatically adds—"Maria Monk has not disclosed one tenth part of the truth respecting the Roman Priests and Nuns in Canada."
Fifty other persons from that province, now residing in New York, likewise attest the truth of the "Disclosures."
At Sorel, Berthier, and Three Rivers, the usual stopping-places for the steamboats on the River St. Lawrence, the Priests, if they have any cause to be at the wharf, may be seen accompanied by one or more children, their "Nephews," as the Priests facetiously denominate their offspring; and if any person on the steamboat should be heard expatiating upon the piety, the temperance, the honesty, or the purity of Roman Priests and Nuns, he would be laughed at outright, either as a natural or an ironical jester; while the priest himself would join in the merriment, as being a "capital joke."
We are assured by the most indisputable authority in Montreal, that the strictly religious people in that city do generally credit Maria Monk's statements without hesitation; and the decisive impression of her veracity can never be removed. If it were possible at once to reform the nunneries, and to transform them from castles of ignorance, uncleanness, and murder, where all their arts are concealed in impervious secrecy, into abodes of wisdom, chastity, and benevolence to every recess of which all persons, at every hour, might have unrestricted admission—that would not change the past; it would leave them indelibly branded with the emphatical title applied to the nunnery at Charlestown, "FILTHY, MURDEROUS DENS."
3. Who are those who deny the truth of the book? Case of Father Conroy. Father Conroy's deception.
In addition to the objections from improbability, another series of opposition consists of flat, broad denials of the truth of Maria Monk's "Awful Disclosures." This mode of vanquishing direct charges is even more invalid than the former futile cavilling. It is also remarkable, when we remember who are the persons that deny the statements made by Maria Monk. Are they the Roman Priests implicated? Not at all. They are too crafty. The only persons who attempt to hint even a suspicion of the truth of the secrets divulged in the "Awful Disclosures," are editors of Newspapers: some of whom are ever found on the side of infidelity and vice; men always reproaching religion; and directly calumniating, or scornfully ridiculing the best Christians in the land; and profoundly ignorant of Popery and Jesuitism, and the monastic system.
It is true that Priest Conroy of New York, has contradicted in general terms the truth of the statement respecting himself, and his attempt to abduct Maria Monk from the Almshouse. But what does he deny? He is plainly charged, in the "Awful Disclosures," with a protracted endeavor, by fraud or by force to remove Maria Monk from that institution. Now that charge involves a flagrant misdemeanor, or it is a wicked and gross libel. Let him answer the following questions:
Did he not frequently visit the house, and lurk about at various times, for longer and shorter periods, expressly to have an interview with Maria Monk?
Did he not state that he was acquainted with her by the name she bore in the nunnery, Sainte Eustace.
Did he not declare that he was commissioned by Lartigue, Phelan, Dufresne, Kelly, and the Abbess of the Hotel Dieu Nunnery at Montreal, to obtain a possession of her, that she might be sent back to the abode of the Furies?
Did he not offer her any thing she pleased to demand, provided she would reside with the Ursulines of this city?
Did he not also declare that he would have her at all risks, and that she could not escape him?
Did he not persevere in this course of action, until he was positively assured that she would not see him, and that the Priest Conroy should not have access to Maria Monk?
Was not the priest Kelly, from Canada, in New York at that period, prompting Conroy; and did not that same Kelly come on here expressly to obtain possession of Maria Monk, that he might carry her back to the Hotel Dieu Nunnery, there to murder her, as his accomplices have smothered, poisoned, and bled to death other victims of their beastly licentiousness?
All these questions are implied in Maria Monk's statement, and they involve the highest degree of crime against the liberty, rights, and life of Maria Monk, and the laws of New York, and the charge is either true or false. Why does not the Priest Conroy try it? Why does he not demonstrate that he is calumniated, by confronting the Authoress and Publishers of the book before an impartial jury. We are assured that the Executive committee of the New York Protestant Association will give ten dollars to any Lawyer, whom Mr. Conroy will authorize to institute a civil suit for libel, payable at the termination of the process. Will he subject the question to that scrutiny? Never. He would rather follow the example of his fellow priests, and depart from New York. Many of the Maynooth Jesuits, after having fled from Ireland for their crimes, to this country, to avoid the punishments due to them for the repetition of them in the United States, and to elude discovery, have assumed false names and gone to France; or in disguise have joined their dissolute companions in Canada.
It is also a fact, that the Priest, named Quarter, with one of his minions, did visit the house where Maria Monk resides, on the 13th day of February, 1836; and did endeavor to see her alone, under the false pretext of delivering to her a packet from her brother in Montreal; and as an argument for having an interview with her without company, one of the two impostors did protest that he had a parcel from John Monk; which "he had sworn not to deliver except into the hands of his sister in person." Now what object had Mr. Quarter in view; and what was his design in going to her residence between nine and ten o'clock at night, under a lying pretence? Mr. Quarter comes from Canada. He knows all the Priests of Montreal. For what purpose did he assume a fictitious character, and utter base and wilful falsehoods, that, he might have access to her, with another man, when Maria Monk, as they hoped, would be without a protector? For what ignoble design did he put an old Truth Teller into a parcel, and make his priest-ridden minion declare that it was a very valuable packet of letters from John Monk? That strange contrivance requires explanation. Did Priest Quarter believe that Maria Monk was in Montreal? Did he doubt her personal identity? Does not that fact alone verity that all the Roman Priests are confederated? Does it not prove that her delineations are correct? Does it not evince that the Papal Ecclesiastics dread the disclosures?
4. The great ultimate test which the nature of this case demands. Challenge of the New York Protestant Association.—It is readily admitted, that the heinous charges which are made by Maria Monk against the Roman priests cannot easily be rebutted in the usual form of disproving criminal allegations. The denial of those Priests is good for nothing, and they cannot show an alibi. But there is one mode of destroying Maria Monk's testimony, equally prompt and decisive, and no other way is either feasible, just, or can be efficient. That method is the plan proposed by the New York Protestant Association.
The Hotel Dieu Nunnery is in Montreal. Here is Maria Monk's description of its interior apartments and passages. She offers to go to Montreal under the protection of a committee of four members of the New York Protestant Association, and in company with four gentlemen of Montreal, to explore the Nunnery; and she also voluntarily proposes that if her descriptions of the interior of the Hotel Dieu Nunnery are not found to be true, she will surrender herself to Lartigue and his confederates to torture her in what way they may please, or will bear the punishment of the civil laws as a base and wilful slanderer of the Canadian Jesuit Ecclesiastics.
When Lartigue, Bonin, Dufresne, Phelan, Richards, and their fellows, accede to this proposition, we shall hesitate respecting Maria Monk's veracity; until then, by all impartial and intelligent judges, and by enlightened Protestants and Christians, the "Awful Disclosures" will be pronounced undeniable facts. The scrutiny, however, respecting Maria Monk's credibility comprises two general questions, to which we shall succinctly reply.
1. Was Maria Monk a Nun in the Hotel Dieu Convent at Montreal?—In ordinary cases, to dispute respecting a circumstance of that kind would be deemed a most strange absurdity; and almost similar to an inquiry into a man's personal identity when his living form is before your eyes. Maria Monk says she was a nun, presents you a book descriptive of the Convent in which she resided, and leaves the fact of her abode there to be verified by the minute accuracy of her delineations of arcana, with which only the visiting Roman Priests and the imprisoned nuns are acquainted. That test, neither Lartigue nor the Priests will permit to be applied; and therefore, so far, Maria Monk's testimony cannot directly be corroborated. It is however not a little remarkable, that no one of all the persons so boldly impeached by her of the most atrocious crimes, has, even whispered a hint that she was not a nun; while the priest Conroy has confirmed that fact far more certainly than if he had openly asserted its truth.
5. The Testimony of Mrs. Monk considered.—The only evidence against that fact is her mother. Now it is undeniable, that her mother is a totally incompetent witness. She is known in Montreal to be a woman of but little principle; and her oath in her daughter's favour would be injurious to her; for she is so habitually intemperate, that it is questionable whether she is ever truly competent to explain any matters which come under her notice. Truth requires this declaration, although Maria, with commendable filial feelings, did not hint at the fact. Besides, during a number of years past, she has exhibited a most unnatural aversion, or rather animosity, to her daughter; so that to her barbarous usage of Maria when a child, may be imputed the subsequent scenes through which she has passed. When appealed to respecting her daughter, her uniform language was such as this—"I do not care what becomes of her, or who takes her, or where she goes, or what is done to her, provided she keeps away from me." It is also testified by the most unexceptionable witnesses in Montreal, that when Maria Monk went to that city in August, 1835, and first made known her case, that Mrs. Monk repeatedly declared, that her daughter had been a Nun; and that she had been in the Nunneries at Montreal a large portion of her life. She also avowed, that the offer of bribery that had been made unto her, had been made, not by Protestants, to testify that her daughter Maria had been an inmate of the Hotel Dieu Nunnery; but by the Roman Priests, who had promised her one hundred dollars, if she would make an affidavit that Maria had not been in that nunnery at all; and would also swear to any other matters which they dictated. Now there is little room for doubt, that the affidavit to the truth of which she finally swore was thus obtained; for she has not capacity to compose such a narrative, nor has she been in a state of mind, for a number of years past, to understand the details which have thus craftily been imposed upon the public in her name. When she had no known inducement to falsify the fact in August, 1835, before the Priests became alarmed, then she constantly affirmed that her daughter had been a Nun; but after Lartigue and his companions were assured that her daughter's narrative would appear, then the mother was probably bribed, formally to swear to a wilful falsehood; for it is most probable, that she either did not see, or from intoxication could not comprehend, the contents of the paper to which her signature is affixed. Her habitual intemperance, her coarse impiety, her long-indulged hatred and cruelty towards her daughter, and her flat self-contradictions, with her repeated and public declarations, that she had been offered a large sum of money by the Montreal Priests, thus to depreciate her daughter's allegations, and to attest upon oath precisely the contrary to that which she had previously declared, to persons whose sole object was to ascertain the truth—all those things demonstrate that Mrs. Monk's evidence is of no worth; and yet that is all the opposite evidence which can be adduced.
6. Testimony in favour of the book.—Mr. Miller the son of Adam Miller, a well known teacher at St. John's, who has known Maria Monk from her childhood, and who is now a resident of New York, solemnly attests, that in the month of August, 1833, he made inquiries of Mrs. Monk respecting her daughter Maria, and that Mrs. Monk informed him that Maria was then a Nun! that she had taken the veil previous to that conversation, and that she had been in the nunnery for a number of years. Mr. Miller voluntarily attests to that fact. He was totally ignorant of Maria Monk's being out of the Nunnery at Montreal, until he saw her book, and finally by searching out her place of abode, renewed the acquaintance with her which had existed between them from the period when she attended his father's school in her childhood. See the affidavit of William Miller.
When Maria Monk made her escape, as she states, from the Hotel Dieu Nunnery, she took refuge in the house of a woman named Lavalliere in Elizabeth street, Montreal, the second or third door from the corner of what is commonly called "the Bishop's Church." Madame Lavalliere afterward admitted, that Maria Monk did arrive at her house at the time specified, in the usual habiliments of a Nun, and made herself known as an eloped Nun; that she provided her with other clothing; and that she afterward carried the Nun's garments to the Hotel Dieu Nunnery.
After her escape, Maria Monk narrates that she went on board a steamboat for Quebec, intending thereby to avoid being seized and again transferred to the Nunnery, that she was recognised by the Captain, was kept under close watch during the whole period of the stay of that boat at Quebec, and merely by accident escaped the hands of the Priests, by watching for an unexpected opportunity to gain the shore during the absence of the Captain, and the momentary negligence of the female attendant in the cabin. The woman was called Margaret ——, the other name is forgotten. The name of the Master of the steamboat is probably known and he has never pretended to deny that statement, that he did thus detain Maria Monk, would not permit her to go on shore at Quebec, and that he also conducted her back to Montreal; having suspected or ascertained that she was a Nun who had clandestinely escaped from a Convent.
7. Corroborative evidence unintentionally furnished by the opponents of the book.—After her flight from the steamboat, she was found early in the morning, in a very perilous situation, either on the banks, or partly in Lachine Canal, and was committed to the public prison by Dr. Robertson, whence she was speedily released through the intervention of Mr. Esson, one of the Presbyterian ministers of Montreal. Upon this topic, her statement coincides exactly with that of Dr. Robertson.
But he also states—"Although incredulous as to the truth of Maria Monk's story, I thought it incumbent upon me to make some inquiry concerning it, and have ascertained where she has been residing a great part of the time she states having been an inmate of the Nunnery. During the summer of 1832, she was at service at William Henry; the winters of 1832-3, she passed in this neighborhood at St. Ours and St. Denis."
That is most remarkable testimony, because, although Papists may justly be admitted to know nothing of times and dates, unless by their Carnivals, their Festivals, their Lent, or their Penance—yet Protestant Magistrates might be more precise. Especially, as it is a certain fact, that no person at Sorel can be discovered, who is at all acquainted with such a young woman in service in the summer of 1832. It is true, she did reside at St. Denis or St. Ours, as the Roman Priests can testify; but not at the period specified by Dr. Robertson.
For the testimony of a decisive witness in favour of Maria Monk, see the statement of an old schoolmate in Appendix.
8. Summary view of the evidence.—Let us sum up this contradictory evidence respecting the simple fact, whether Maria Monk was a resident of the Hotel Dieu Nunnery or not?
Her mother says—"I denied that my daughter had ever been in a Nunnery." Dr. Robertson informed us—"I have ascertained where she has been residing a great part of the time she states having been an inmate of the Nunnery." That is all which can be adduced to contradict Maria Monk's statement.
This is a most extraordinary affair, that a young woman's place of abode cannot be accurately discovered during several years, when all the controversy depends upon the fact of that residence. Why did not Dr. Robertson specify minutely with whom Maria Monk lived at service at William Henry, in the summer of 1832?—Why did not Dr. Robertson exactly designate where, and with whom, she resided at St. Denis and St. Ours, in the winters of 1832 and 1833? The only answer to these questions is this—Dr. Robertson cannot. He obtained his contradictory information most probably from her mother, or from the Priest Kelly, and then embodied it in his affidavit to regain that favour and popularity with the Montreal Papists which he has so long lost. We are convinced that neither the evidence of Mrs. Monk, nor Dr. Robertson, would be of a feather's weight in a court of justice against the other witnesses, Mrs. ——, and Mr. William Miller.
Maria Monk asserts, that she was a resident of the Hotel Dieu Nunnery during the period designated by Dr. Robertson, which is familiarly denominated the Cholera summer. In her narrative she develops a variety of minute and characteristic details of proceedings in that Institution, connected with things which all persons in Montreal know to have actually occurred, and of events which it is equally certain did happen, and which did not transpire anywhere else; and which is impossible could have taken place at Sorel or William Henry; because there is no Nunnery there; and consequently her descriptions would be purely fabricated and fictitious.
But the things asserted are not inventions of imagination. No person could thus delineate scenes which he had not beheld; and therefore Maria Monk witnessed them; consequently, she was a member of that family community; for the circumstances which she narrates nowhere else occurred. At all events, it seems more reasonable to suppose that an individual can more certainly tell what had been his own course of life, than persons who, by their own admission, know nothing of the subject; and especially when her statements are confirmed by such unexceptionable witnesses. There are, however, two collateral points of evidence which strongly confirm Maria Monk's direct statements. One is derived from the very character of the acknowledgments which she made, and the period when they were first disclosed. "A death-bed," says the Poet, "is a detector of the heart." Now it is certain, that the appalling facts which she states, were not primarily made in a season of hilarity, or with any design to "make money" by them, or with any expectation that they would be known to any other person than Mr. Hilliker, Mr. Tappan, and a few others at Bellevue; but when there was no anticipation that her life would be prolonged, and when agonized with the most dreadful retrospection and prospects.
It is not possible to believe, that any woman would confess those facts which are divulged by Maria Monk, unless from dread of death and the judgment to come, or from the effect of profound Christian penitence. Feminine repugnance would be invincible. Thus, the alarm of eternity, her entrance upon which appeared to be so immediate, was the only cause of those communications; which incontestably prove, that Nunneries are the very nurseries of the most nefarious crimes, and the most abandoned transgressors.
The other consideration is this—that admitting the statements to be true, Maria Monk could not be unconscious of the malignity of Roman Priests, and of her own danger; and if her statements were fictitious, she was doubly involving herself in irreparable disgrace and ruin. In either case, as long as she was in New York she was personally safe; and as her disclosures had been restricted to very few persons, she might have withdrawn from the public institution, and in privacy have passed away her life, "alike unknowing and unknown." Lunacy itself could only have instigated a woman situated as she was, to visit Montreal, and there defy the power, and malice, and fury of the Roman Priests, and their myrmidons; by accumulating upon them charges of rape, infanticide, the affliction of the tortures of the Inquisition, and murders of cold-blooded ferocity in the highest degree, with all the atrocious concomitant iniquities which those prolific sins include.
Now it is certain, that she was not deranged; and she was not forced. She went deliberately, and of her own accord, to meet the Popish Priests upon the spot where their crimes are perpetrated, and the stronghold of their power. Whether that measure was the most prudent and politic for herself, and the most wise and efficient for the acquisition of the avowed object, may be disputed; but the exemplary openness and the magnanimous daring of that act cannot be controverted.
The narrative, pages 116 to l27, respecting the cholera and the election riots at Montreal, both which scenes happened at the period when Dr. Robertson says Maria Monk was at William Henry, or St. Denis, or St. Ours; could not have been described, at least that part of it respecting the wax candles, and the preparation for defence, except by a resident of the Nunnery.
It is a public, notorious fact, that "blessed candles" were made, and sold by the Nuns, and used at Montreal under the pretext to preserve the houses from the Cholera, and to drive it away; that those candles were directed so to be kept burning by the pretended injunction of the Pope; and that large quantities of the Nunnery candles were dispersed about Montreal and its vicinity, which were fixed at a high price; and whoever suffered by the Cholera, the Nuns and their Masters, the Priests, could truly say—"By this craft we have our wealth." Acts 19:25. It is obvious, that a young Papist woman at service at William Henry, could know no more of those matters, than if she had been at Labrador; for the incidental remark with which that part of the narrative commences, is one of those apparently superfluous intimations, which it is evident a person who was writing a fiction would not introduce; and yet it is so profoundly characteristic of a Canadian Convent, that its very simple artlessness at once obliterates Dr. Robertson's affidavit. "There were a few instances, and only a few, in which we knew any thing that was happening in the world; and even then our knowledge did not extend out of the city." We cannot be infallibly certain of Maria Monk's description of the interior of the Nunnery; but that unpremeditated remark, so minutely descriptive of the predominating ignorance among the Nuns of all terrestrial concerns exterior of the Convent, is satisfactory proof that the narrator was not sketching from fancy, but depicting from actual life.
From those testimonies, direct and unintentional, it is fully evident, that Maria Monk was a long resident, and is profoundly acquainted with the doings in the Hotel Dieu Convent at Montreal.
II. What collateral evidence can be adduced of the truth of the "Awful Disclosures" by Maria Monk?
1. One corroborative testimony is derived from the silence of the Roman Priests and their avowed partisans. Months have passed away since the first statements of those matters were made, and also the defence of the Priests, with the affidavits and other connected circumstances, were presented to the public in the Protestant Vindicator. One of the persons in Montreal, who was in favour of the Jesuits, Mr. Doucet, stated that "the Priests never take up such things; they allow their character to defend itself." There was a time when that contemptuous course would have sufficed, or rather, when to have spoken the truth of the Roman Priests would have cost a man his life, and overwhelmed his family in penury, disgrace, and anguish. The Canadian Jesuits may be assured that time has passed away, never more to return. They must take up this thing; for their characters cannot defend themselves; and every enlightened man in Canada knows, that in a moral aspect, they cannot be defended.
Argument, denial, affidavits, if they could reach from Montreal to New York, and the oaths of every Papist and Infidel in Canada,—from Joseph Signay, the Popish Prelate of Quebec and Jean Jacques Lartigue, the Suffragan of Montreal, down to the most profligate of the half-pay military officers, among whom are to be found some of the dregs of the British army, all of them will avail nothing. They are not worth a puff of wind against the internal evidence of Maria Monk's book, in connexion with the rejection of the proposal of the New York Protestant Association, that the Nunnery shall undergo a strict and impartial examination. It is one of the remarkable evidences of the extraordinary delusion which blinds, or the infatuation which enchains the public mind, that men will not credit the corruptions and barbarities of Romanism. To account for this stupefaction among persons who are wide awake to every other system of deadly evil, is almost impossible. Popery necessarily extirpates the rights of man. It ever has destroyed the well-being of society. By it, all municipal law and domestic obligations are abrogated: It always subverts national prosperity and stability; and it is the invincible extinguisher of all true morality and genuine religion. Notwithstanding, men will give credence neither to its own avowed principles, character, and spirit; nor to the unavoidable effects which constantly have flowed from its operations and predominance.
In any other case but one exposing the abominations of Popery, such a volume as Maria Monk's "Awful Disclosures" would have been received without cavil; and immediate judicial measures would have been adopted, to ascertain the certainty of the alleged facts, and the extent and aggravation of their criminality. But now persons are calling for more evidence, when, if they reflected but for a moment, they would perceive, that the only additional evidence possible, is under the entire control of the very persons who are criminated; and to whom the admission of further testimony would be the accumulation of indelible ignominy.
The pretence, that it is contrary to their rules to allow strangers to explore the interior of a nunnery, only adds insult to crime. Why should a Convent be exempt from search, more than any other edifice? Why should Roman Priests be at liberty to perpetrate every deed of darkness in impenetrable recesses called nunneries? Why should one body of females, shut up in a certain species of mansion, to whom only one class of men have unrestricted access, be excluded from all public and legal supervision, more than any other habitation of lewd women, into which all men may enter? As citizens of the United States, we do not pretend to have any authoritative claim to explore a convent within the dominion of a foreign potentate. The Roman Priests of Canada, exercise a vast influence, and are completely intertwined with the Jesuits, in this republic. Therefore, when they remember the extinction of the nunneries at Monroe, Michigan, Charlestown, and Pittsburg; and when they recollect, that the delineations of Maria Monk, if they produce no effect in Canada, will assuredly render female convents in the United States very suspicious and insecure; if they have any solicitude for their confederates, they will intrepidly defy research, and dauntlessly accept the offer of the New York Protestant Association: that a joint committee of disinterested, enlightened and honorable judges, should fully investigate, and equitably decide upon the truth or falsehood of Maria Monk's averments. Their ominous silence, their affected contempt, and their audacious refusal, are calculated only to convince every impartial person, of even the smallest discernment, of the real state of things in that edifice; that the chambers of pollution are above, and that the dungeon of torture and death are below; and that they dread the exposure of the theatre on which their horrible tragedies are performed.
It is also a fact publicly avowed by certain Montreal Papists themselves, and extensively told in taunt and triumph, that they have been employed as masons and carpenters by the Roman Priests, since Maria Monk's visit to Montreal in August, 1835, expressly to alter various parts of the Hotel Dieu Convent, and to close up some of the subterraneous passages and cells in that nunnery. This circumstance is not pretended even to be disputed or doubted; for when the dungeons under ground are spoken of before the Papists, their remark is this: "Eh bien! mais vous ne les trouverez pas, À present; on les a cachÉ hors de vue. Very well, you will not find them there now; they are closed up, and out of sight." Why was the manoeuvre completed? Manifestly, that in urgent extremity, a casual explorer might be deceived, by the apparent proof that the avenues, and places of imprisonment and torture which Maria Monk describes are not discoverable. Now that circumstance might not even been suspected, if the Papist workmen themselves had not openly boasted of the chicanery by which the Priests, who employed them, expected to blind and deceive the Protestants. For in reference to the Romanists, a Popish Priest well knows that nothing more is necessary than for him to assert any absurdity, however gross or impossible, and attest it by the five crosses on his vestments, and his own superstitious vassal believes it with more assurance than his own personal identity. But the filling up and the concealment of the old apertures in the nunnery, by the order of the Roman Priests are scarcely less powerful corroborative proof of Maria Monk's delineations, than ocular and palpable demonstration.
2. Some of the circumstances attending Maria Monk's visit to Montreal, in August, 1835, add great weight in favour of the truth, which no cavils, skepticism, scorn, nor menaces, can counterbalance.
We will however state one very recent occurrence, because it seems to us, that it alone is almost decisive of the controversy. A counsellor of Quebec—his name is omitted merely from delicacy and prudential considerations—has been in New York since the publication of the "Awful Disclosures" His mind was so much influenced by the perusal of that volume, that he sought out the Authoress, and most closely searched into the credibility of her statements. Before the termination of the interview, that gentleman became so convinced of the truth of the picture which Maria Monk drew of the interior of the Canadian Nunneries, that he expressed himself to the following effect:—"My daughter, about 15 years of age, is in the Ursuline Convent at Quebec. I will return home immediately; and if I cannot remove her any other way, I will drag her out by the hair of her head, and raise a noise about their ears that shall not soon be quieted."
That gentleman did so return to Quebec, since which he has again visited New York; and he stated, that upon his arrival in Quebec, he went to the Convent, and instantly removed his daughter from the Ursuline Nunnery; from whom he ascertained, as far as she had been initiated into the mysteries, that Maria Monk's descriptions of Canadian Nunneries, are most minutely and undeniably accurate.
We have already remarked, that Mrs. ——, Mr. Lloyd, Mr. Hogan, and Mr. Smith, who was a Papist Priest, with scores of other persons who formerly resided in Montreal, all express their unqualified belief of the statements made by Maria Monk. Mr. Ogden's acquaintance with the facts, as Attorney General, and that of other officers of the Provincial Government, have also been noticed. The ensuing additional circumstances are of primary importance to a correct estimate of the value which should be attached to the crafty silence of the Roman Priests and the impudent denials of infidel profligates.
Mr. Bouthillier, one of the Montreal Magistrates, called at Mr. Johnson's house where Maria Monk stayed, in the month of August, 1835, when visiting Montreal.
He addressed her and said:—"There is some mystery about Novices—What is it? and asked how long a woman must be a novice before she can take the veil?" Having been answered, Mr. Bouthillier then desired Maria Monk to describe the Superior of the Hotel Dieu Nunnery. As soon as it was done, he became enraged, and said—"Vous dites un mensonge, vous en savez. You lie, you know you do?"—Mr. Bouthillier next inquired—"Was Mr. Tabeau in the Holy Retreat when you left the Convent?" She answered "Yes." To which he replied in French—"Anybody might have answered that question." Something having been said about the Hotel Dieu Nuns being confined to their convent, Mr. Bouthillier declared, that they were allowed to go about the streets. He was told that could not be the case, for it was a direct violation of the rules for Nuns to depart from the Hotel Dieu Nunnery. He replied—"Ce n'est pas vrai. That is not true," Mr. Bonthillier then became very angry, and applied to Maria Monk some very abusive epithets, for which a gentleman in the room reproved him. It was evident, that he lost his temper because he had lost his argument, and his hopes of controverting her statements.
On the Lord's day after Maria Monk's arrival in Montreal, and when the matter had become well known and much talked about, Phelan, the Priest, at the end of mass, addressed the Papists, who were assembled to hear mass, to this effect: "There is a certain nun in this city who has left our faith, and joined the Protestants. She has a child of which she is ready to swear I am the father. She wishes in this way to take my gown from me. If I knew where to find her, I would put her in prison. I mention this to guard you against being deceived by what she may say. The Devil now has such hold upon people that there is danger lest some might believe her story." He then pretended to weep, and appeared to be overcome with feeling. A number of the people gathered around him, and he said: "That nun is Antichrist. She is not a human being, but an evil spirit, who got among the Catholics, and was admitted into the nunnery, where she learned the rules." He also stated, that "in that nun, the prophecy respecting the coming of Antichrist is fulfilled, to break down the Catholic religion." Such was Phelan's address to the people. He declared that Maria Monk had been a nun. Now he knew her, for he saw her in Montreal, where she could not know him. It would have saved all further inquiry and research, if, instead of denouncing her after mass, he had merely assented to Maria Monk's proposition, to be confronted with those Roman Priests and nuns before impartial witnesses in the Hotel Dieu Convent.
One of the most impressively characteristic circumstances which occurred during Maria Monk's visit to Montreal in Aug. 1835, was an interview at Mr. Johnson's house with a carpenter who had heard Phelan's denunciation of Maria Monk after mass.
The heinous destruction of all domestic confidence and of all female purity, is known to be the constant and general practice, not only in Canada, but in all other Popish countries, and among Papists in every part of the world. For in truth it is only fulfilling the authentic dogmas of their own system. The following authoritative principles are divulged in the Corpus Juris Canonici, which contains the Decretals, Canons, &c. of the Popes and Councils; and other participants of the pretended Papal infallibility. "If the Pope fall into homicide or adultery, he cannot be accused, but is excused by the murders of Samson, and the adultery of David." Hugo, Glossa, distinc. 40 Chapter, Non vos.—"Likewise if any Priest is found embracing a woman, it must be presupposed and expounded that he doth it to bless her!"—Glossa, Caus. 12. Quest. 3. Chapter Absis. According to the Pope's bull he who does not believe those doctrines is accursed.
As that carpenter was completely overcome by the recollection of the Priest's information and caution about his marriage, he desisted from any further questions; but upon Maria Monk's declaration, that she was desirous to go into the convent, and prove all her accusations against the Priests and Nuns, he withdrew. Soon after he returned, and stated, that he had been to the Convent, to inquire respecting her; and that he had been informed, that she had once belonged to the Nunnery; but that they would not any longer own or recognise her. Afterwards he exhibited the most contradictory emotions, and first cursed Maria Monk; then reviled the Priests, applying to them all the loathsome epithets in the Canadian vocabulary. Subsequently, he went to make inquiries at the Seminary; and after his return to Mr. Johnson's house he declared, that the persons there had informed him, that Maria Monk had lived in the Nunnery, but not as a Nun; then he offered to assist her in her endeavours to expose the Priests; and finally disappeared, swearing aloud as he was retiring from the house; and apparently thinking over the conduct of the Priest to his wife before their marriage. "Oh, sacre!"—he repeated to himself—"c'est trop mechant!"
Similar facts to the above occurred frequently during the time of Maria Monk's visit to Montreal—in which strangers who called upon her, cursed and reviled her; then believed her statements and assented to them—and displayed all the natural excitement which was necessarily comprised in the working of their own belief and convictions of the iniquity of the Priests, and the dread resulting from their own superstitious vassalage, and the certainty of a heavy penance.
But in connexion with the preceding collateral evidence is another remarkable circumstance, which is this: the extensive knowledge which Maria Monk has obtained of the Canadian Jesuits. Those with whom she has been acquainted, she affirms that she could instantly identify. For that object, she has given a catalogue of those Priests whose names and persons are in some degree familiarly known to her. As the Priests are often changing their abodes, and many of them residents in Montreal until a vacancy occurs for them in the country parishes, in those particulars there may be a trifling mistake; but Maria Monk solemnly avers, that the Priests, whether dead or living, who are enumerated in the subsequent catalogue, either have dwelt or do yet reside in the places specified. When unexpectedly and closely examined in reference to the Priests of the same name, she particularly distinguished them, and pointed out the difference between them in their persons, gait, &c.; thus precluding all objection from the fact of there being more than one Priest with a similar appellative. This circumstance particularly is illustrated by the Priests named Marcoux, of whom she says there are three brothers or first cousins—two called Dufresne, &c.: each of whom she graphically depicts. It is also certain, because she has done it in a great variety of instances, and in the presence of many different persons, all of whom are well acquainted with them, that she describes Lartigue; Dufresne; Richard; Phelan; Bonin; Comte; Bourget; McMahon; Kelly; Demers; Roux; Roque; Sauvage; Tabeau; Marcoux; Morin; Durocher; and all the Roman Priests around Montreal, with the utmost minuteness of accuracy; while the Chaplain of the Ursuline Nunnery at Quebec, Father DaulÈ, is as exactly depicted by her, as if her whole life had been passed under his surveillance. Some of the appellatives in the ensuing catalogue may not be correctly spelt. Scarcely any thing is more difficult than to acquire proper names in a foreign language; and especially where the pronunciation itself is provincial, as is the case with Canadian French; and when also those titles have to be transcribed from the mouth of a person who knows no more of orthoepy and orthography than a Canadian Nun. However, Maria Monk attests, that the Priests to whom she refers did reside at those places which she has designated, and that she has seen them all in the Hotel Dieu Nunnery—some of them very often, and others on a variety of occasions.
Nothing is more improbable, if not impossible, than that any Papist girl should have such an extensive acquaintance among Roman Priests. In Canada especially, where the large majority of females have little more correct knowledge of that which occurs out of their own district than of Herschel's astronomical discoveries, young women cannot be personally familiar with any Priests, in ordinary cases, except those who may have been "CurÉs" of the parish in which they reside, or of the immediate vicinity, or an occasional visitor during the absence, or sickness, or death of the resident Curate or Missionary. Notwithstanding, Maria Monk delineates to the life, the prominent features, the exact figure, and the obvious characteristic exterior habits and personal appearance of more than one hundred and fifty of those Priests, scattered about in all parts of Canada; Among others she particularly specifies the following men: but some of whom she notes as dead. Others she has named, but as her recollections of them are less distinct, they are not enumerated. Jean Jacques Lartigue, Bishop of Telmese, Montreal. The Irish Priest McMahon, who has resided both in Montreal and Quebec. M. Dufrense, St. Nicholas. L. Cadieux, Vicar General, Three Rivers. F. F. Marcoux, Maskinonge. S. N. Dumoulin, Yamachiche. A. Leclerc, Yomaska. V. Fournier, Baie du Febre. J. Demers, St. Gregoire. C. B. Courtain, Gentilly. T. Pepin, St. Jean. Ignace Bourget, Montreal. The Priest Moor, Missionary. J. C. Prince, Montreal. J. M. Sauvage, Montreal. J. Comte, Montreal. J. H. A. Roux, Vicar General, Montreal. J. Roque, Montreal. A. Malard, Montreal. A. L. Hubart, Montreal. A. Satin, Montreal. J. B. Roupe, Montreal. Nic. Dufresne, Montreal. J. Richard, Montreal. C. Fay, Montreal. J. B. St. Pierre, Montreal. F. Bonin, P. Phelan, Montreal. T. B. M'Mahon, Perce. J. Marcoux, Caghuawaga. C. De Bellefeuille, Lake of two Mountains. Claude Leonard, Montreal. F. Durocher, Lake of two Mountains. G. Belmont, St. Francis. F. Demers, Vicar General, St. Denis. J. O. Giroux, St. Benoit. J. B. St. Germain, St. Laurent. J. D. Delisle, St. Cesaire. J. M. Lefebvre, St. Genevieve. F. Pigeon, St. Philippe. A. Duransau, Lachine. O. Chevrefils, St. Constant. Joseph Quiblier, Montreal. Francis Humbert, Montreal. J. Arraud, Montreal. O. Archambault, Montreal. J. Larkin, Montreal. F. Sery, Montreal. R. Larre, Montreal. A. Macdonald, Montreal. F. Larkin, Montreal. J. Beauregard, Montreal. R. Robert, Montreal. J. Fitz Patrick, Montreal. J. Toupin, Montreal. W. Baun, Montreal. T. Filiatreault. Montreal. J. Brady, Montreal. P. Trudel, St. Hyacinth. John Grant, St. Hyacinth. J. Delaire, Chambly. J. Desautels, Chambly. P. D. Ricard, St. Joachim. Jan. Leclaire, Isle Jesus. F. M. Turcot, St. Rose. C. Larocque, Berthier, T. Brassard, St. Elizabeth. J. B. Keller, St. Elizabeth. J. Ravienne, Lanorate. J. T. Gagno, Valtrie. Gasford Guingner, St. Melanie. L. Nicholas Jacques, St. Sulpice. J. Renucalde, St. Jaques. T. Can, St. Esprit. C. J. Ducharme, St. Therese. J. ValliÉe, St. Scholastique. J. J. Vinet, Arganteuil. M. Power, Beauharnois. J. B. Labelle, Chateauguay. E. Bietz, St. Constant. P. Bedard, St. Remi. C. Aubry, St. Athanase. L. Vinet, Noyon. J. Roque, Noyon. J. Zeph, Carren. F. Berauld, St. Valentia. A. Maresseau, Longueuil. P. Brunet, ——. J. Odelin, Rounilli. J. B. Dupuis, ——. L. Nau, Rouville. A. O. Giroux, St. Marc. G. Marchesseau, ——. J. B. Belanger, St. Ours. H. Marcotte, Isle du Pads. E. Crevier, Yamaska. G. Arsonault, ——. Eusebe Durocher, ——. D. Denis, St. Rosalie. F. X. Brunet, St. Damase. J.A. Boisond, St. Pie. M. Quintal, St. Damase. L. Aubry, Points Calire. P. Tetro, Beauharnois. B. Ricard, St. Constant. M. Morin, Maskonche. J. Crevier, Blairfindie. P. Grenier, Charteaguay. A. Darocher, Pointe aux Trembles. P. Murcure, La Presentation. R. Gaulin, Dorchester. H. L. Girouard, St. Hyacinthe. J. Paquin, Blairfinde. E. Brassard, St. Polycarpe. J. Boissonnault, Riviere des Prairies. F. N. Blanchet, Soulanges. E. Lavoie, Blairfindie. J. B. Kelly, Sorel. E. Morriset, St. Cyprian. H. Hudon, Argenteuil. M. Brudet, St. Martin. P. P. Archambault, Vaudreuil. J. B. Boucher, La Prairie. J. Quevillion, St. Ours. A. Chaboillez, Longueuil. P. J. Delamothe, St. Scholastique. T. Lagard, St. Vincent. J. Durocher, St. Benoit. Antoine Tabeau, Vicar General, Montreal. J. F. Hebard, St. Ours. F. A. Trudeau, Montreal. M. J. Felix, St. Benoit. L. Lamothe, Bethier. J. Moirier, St. Anne. F. J. Deguise, Vicar General, Varennes. J. B. Bedard, St. Denis. R. O. Brunsau, Vercheres. F. Portier, Terrebonne. P. D. Ricard, Berthier. L. Gague, Lachenaie. Joseph Belanger, Chambly. M. Blanchet, St. Charles. P. M. Mignault, Chambly. F. Labelle, L'Assumption. F. Marcoux, St. Barthelemi. N. L. Amiot, Repentigny. J. B. Boucher, Chambly. P. Lafranc, St. Jean Baptiste. P. Robitaille, Monnie. F. De Bellefeullie, St. Vincent. M. Brassard, St. Elizabeth. P. Cousigny, St. Mathias. J. D. Daule, Quebec.
It is readily admitted, that any person could take one of the Ecclesiastical Registers of Lower Canada, and at his option mark any number of the Roman Priests in the catalogue, and impute to them any crime which he pleased. But if the accuser were closely examined, and among such a multitude of Priests, who in all their clothing are dressed alike, were called upon minutely to delineate them, it is morally impossible, that he could depict more than a hundred Priests dispersed from the borders of Upper Canada to Quebec, in as many different parishes, with the most perfect accuracy, unless he was personally and well acquainted with them.
Maria Monk, however, does most accurately describe all the Priests in the preceding catalogue, and repeats them at the expiration of weeks and months; and the question is this: how is it possible that she could have become acquainted with so many of that body, and by what means can she so precisely depict their external appearance?—The startling, but the only plausible answer which can be given to that question is this:—that she has seen them in the Nunnery, whither, as she maintains, most of them constantly resorted for licentious intercourse with the Nuns.
One other connected fact may here be introduced. Maria Monk well knows the Lady Superior of the Charlestown Nunnery. That acquaintance could not have been made in the United States, because Saint Mary St. George as she called herself, or Sarah Burroughs, daughter of the notorious Stephen Burroughs, as is her real name, removed to Canada at the latter end of May, 1835; nor could it have been prior to the establishment of the Charlestown Nunnery, for at that period Maria Monk was a child, and was not in any Convent except merely as a scholar; and Mary St. George was at Quebec. How then did she become so familiar with that far-famed lady as to be able to describe her so exactly? The only answer is, that she derived her knowledge of the Charlestown Convent and of its Superior, from the intimations given, and from intercourse with that Nun in the Hotel Dieu Nunnery.
Young females often have been sent to the Nunneries in Canada under the fallacious hope of obtaining for them, a superior education; and very frequently, they are suddenly removed after being there but a short period; because the persons to whose partial guardianship they are committed perceive that they are in danger of being ensnared by the Chaplain and his female Syrens.
But there are two other particulars in American Nunneries, the toleration of which almost surpasses credibility.
In reference to girls, they are permitted to visit their friends, even when they reside in the vicinity of the Convent, only for an hour or two monthly—if their relatives are at a distance, they see them only during the annual vacation, and often remain in the Nunnery during that term. No correspondence is permitted between the mother, the guardian, the sister, or the friends of the young female in the Nunnery School, on either side, without the inspection of the argus-eyed agent of the Institution. Parental advice, filial complaints, and confidential communications are equally arrested; and only furnish to the Superiors of the establishment, artifices to thwart the Seniors, to entangle the Juniors, and effectually to cajole both parties. Consequently, it generally happens, that from one term to another, little or no intercourse exists between the youth and her relatives; and it is indubitable, that where any letters do nominally pass between them, they are forgeries; the real letters being surreptitiously detained. Those felonious regulations furnish ample scope for the initiation of girls just entering upon womanhood, into all the wickedness of the Nunnery; while the girls themselves are unconscious of the design, and the Nuns, those nefarious artificers of the iniquity, in subserviency to the Priests, in case of necessity, can exculpate themselves apparently from all participation in the treachery and crimes.
In the nunneries and conventual schools in the United States there is a sort of fairy land, talked about by the nuns to the elder girls. It is called the "Nuns' Island." That country is always described as an earthly paradise; and to girls who are manifestly fascinated by the witcheries of the nuns, and in whom moral sensibility has become blunted by the unmeaning superstitions which they witness, and which they mechanically perform, a visit to the "Nuns' Island," is always proposed as the greatest privilege, and the most costly reward, which can be given for constant obsequiousness to the nuns, and unreserved compliance with their requirements. The term "Nuns' Island," is thus used to express the nunneries in Canada, and probably some similar institutions in the United States, where they are not too difficult of access. At all events, girls just entering upon the character of women, after proper training, are finally gratified with a visit to the "Nuns' Island." They are taken to Montreal, and in the nunneries there are at once taught "the mystery of iniquity;" in all the living reality which Maria Monk describes. Those girls from the United States, who are represented as novices; in Maria Monk's "Awful Disclosures," were young ladies from the United States, who had been decoyed to visit the "Nuns' Island," and who, not being Papists, often were found very intractable; but posterior circumstances enforce the belief, that having found resistance vain, they had not returned to their school where they were duly qualified to continue the course into which they had been coerced, so as fully to elude all possibility of discovery and exposure. That mother who intrusts her daughter to a nunnery school, is chargeable with the high crime of openly conducting her into the chambers of pollution, and the path to irreligion, and the bottomless pit.
These combined circumstances satisfactorily prove that, the narrative of Maria Monk should be believed by all impartial persons; at least, until other evidence can be adduced, and the offer of exploring the Hotel Dieu Nunnery, by the New York Protestant Association, has been accepted and decided.
3. Additional evidence of the truth of Maria Monk's narrative is deduced from the exact conformity of the facts which she states concerning the Hotel Dieu Nunnery, when compared with the authoritative principles of the Jesuit Priesthood as recorded in their own duly sanctioned volumes. It is essential to remark, that of those books she knows nothing; that she has never seen one of them, and if she could grasp them, that they would impart no illumination to her mind, being in Latin; and yet in many momentous particulars, neither Lartigue nor any one of the Jesuit Priests now in Montreal, who was educated in France, could more minutely and accurately furnish an exposition or practical illustration of the atrocious themes, than Maria Monk has unconsciously done.
Maria Monk's "Awful Disclosures," are reducible to three classes: intolerable sensuality; diversified murder; and most scandalous mendacity: comprehending flagrant, and obdurate, and unceasing violations of the sixth, seventh, and ninth commandments.
The ninth commandment: FALSEHOOD. Of this baseness, five specimens only shall suffice.
Sanchez, a very renowned author, in his work on "Morality and the Precepts of the Decalogue," part 2, book 3, chap. 6, no. 13, thus decides: "A person may take an oath that he has not done any certain thing, though in fact he has. This is extremely convenient, and is also very just, when necessary to your health, honour, and prosperity!" Charli, in his Propositions, no. 6, affirms that, "He who is not bound to state the truth before swearing, is not bound by his oath." Taberna in his vol. 2, part 2, tract 2, chap. 31, p. 288, asks: "Is a witness bound to declare the truth before a lawful judge?" To which he replies: "No, if his deposition will injure himself or his posterity." Laymann, in his works, book 4, tract 2, chap. 2, p. 73, proclaims: "It is not sufficient for an oath, that we use the formal words, if we had not the intention and will to swear, and do not sincerely invoke God as a witness." All those principles are sanctioned by Suarez in his "Precepts of Law," book 3, chap. 9, assertion 2, p. 473, where he says, "If any one has promised or contracted without intention to promise, and is called upon oath to answer, may simply answer, NO; and may swear to that denial."
The idea of obtaining truth, therefore, from a thorough-going Papist, upon any subject in which his "honour" is concerned—and every Papist's honour is indissolubly conjoined with "the Church"—is an absurdity so great, that it cannot be listened to with patience, while the above decisions are the authorised dogmas which the Roman Priests inculcate among their followers. How well the nuns of Montreal have imbibed those Jesuitical instructions, Maria Monk's "Awful Disclosures" amply reveal.
The Sixth Commandment: MURDER. The following miscellaneous decisions are extracted from the works of the regularly sanctioned Roman authors, of the very highest character and rank in that community.
In his famous volume called "Aphorisms," p. 178, Emmanuel Sa writes—"You may kill any person who may be able to put you to death—judge and witnesses—because it is self-defence."
Henriquez, in his "Sum of Moral Theology," vol. 1, book 14, chap. 10, p. 859, decides that "a Priest is not criminal, if he kill the husband of a woman with whom he is caught in adultery."
Airault published a number of propositions. One of them says, that "a person may secretly kill another who attempts to destroy his reputation, although the facts are true which he published." The following must be cited in Latin. "An lieitium sit mulieri procurare abortum? Posset ilium excutere, ne honorem suum amittat, qui illi multo pretiosior est ipsa vita." "An liceat mulieri conjugatÆ sumere pharmacum sterilitatis? Ita satius est ut hoc faciat, quam ut marito debitium conjugale recuset." Censures 319, 322, 327.
In his Moral Theology, vol. 4, book 32, sec. 2, problem 5, Escobar determines, that "it is lawful to kill an accuser whose testimony may jeopard your life and honour."
Guimenius promulged his seventh Proposition in these words: "You may charge your opponent with false crimes to destroy his credit; and you may also kill him."
Marin wrote a book called "Speculative and Moral Theology." In vol. 3, tract 23, disputation 8, sec. 5, no. 63, p. 448, are found the following sentences: "Licet procurare abortum, ne puella infametur." That doctrine is admitted, "to evade personal disgrace, and to conceal the infamy of Monks and Nuns." no. 67, p. 429. In no. 75, p. 430, of the same work, Marin writes: "Navarrus, Arragon, Bannez, Henriquez,, Sa, Sanchez, Palao, and others, all say, that a woman may use not only missione sanguinis, sed aliis medicamentis, etsi inde pereat foetus." With that doctrine also agrees Egidius, in his "Explication of the Decalogue," vol. 5, book 5, chap. 1, doubt 4; and Diana in his work upon Morality, part 6, tract 8, resolution 27, fully ratifies his sanction.
Gobatus published a work which he entitled, "Morality," and in vol. 2, part 2, tract 5, chap. 9, sec. 8, p. 318, is the following edifying specimen of Popish morals: "Persons may innocently desire to be drunk, if any great good will arise from it. A son who inherits wealth by his father's death, may rejoice that when he is intoxicated, he murdered his father." According to which combined propositions, a man may make himself drunk expressly to kill his parent, and yet be guiltless.
Busenbaum wrote a work denominated "Moral Theology." which was enlarged and explained by Lacroix. In vol. 1, p. 295, is the following position: "In all the cases where a man has a right to kill any person, another may do it for him." But we have already heard by Escobar that any "Roman Priest has a right to kill Maria Monk; and therefore any Papist may murder her for them."
Alagona, in his "Compend of the Sum of Theology," by Thomas Aquinas, question 94, p. 230, "Sums" up all the Romish system in this comprehensively blasphemous oracular adage. "By the command of God, it is lawful to murder the innocent, to rob, and to commit lewdness; and thus to fulfil his mandate, is our duty."
The seventh commandment.—In his Aphorisms, p. 80, and p. 259, Sa thus decides—"Copulari ante benedictionem, aut nullam aut leve peceatum est; quin etiam expedit, si multum isla differatur."—"Potest et femina quaeque et mas, pro turpi corporis usu, pretium, accipere et petere."
Hurtado issued a volume of "Disputations and Difficulties." At p. 476 is the following genuine Popish rule of life—"Carnal intercourse before marriage is not unlawful." So teaches that Jesuit oracle.
Dicastillo, in his work upon "Righteousness and other cardinal Virtues," p. 87, thus asks—"An puella, quae per vin opprimitur teneatur clamare et opem implorare ne violetur?" The answer is this—"Non videtur teneri impedire peccatum alterius—sed mere passive se habere."
Escobar, in his "Moral Theology," p. 326, 327, 328, of vol. 4, determines that "a man who abducts a woman from affection expressly to marry her, is guilty of mortal sin, but a Priest who forcibly violates her through lust, incurs no censure."
Tamburin unfolds the character of Romanism in his "Moral Theology," p. 186, in a lengthened discussion of the following characteristic inquiry—"Quantum pro usu corporis sui juste exigat mulier?"—The reply is, "de meretrice et de femina honesta sive conjugata, ant non."
Fegeli wrote a book of "Practical Questions;" and on p. 397, is the following—"Under what obligation is he who defiles a virgin?"—The answer is this—"Besides the obligation of penance, he incurs none; quia puella habet jus usum sui corporis concedendi."
Trachala published a volume which he facetiously entitled the "Laver of Conscience;" and at p. 96, he presents us with this astounding recipe to purify the conscience—"An Concubinarius sit absolvendus antequam concubinam dimittat?" To which he replies—"Si ilia concubina sit valde bona et utilis economa, et sic nullam aliam possit habere, esset absolvendus."
From the prior decisions, combined with numberless others which might be extracted from the works of the Romish authors, it is obvious, that the violations of the seventh commandment, are scarcely enumerated by the Papal priesthood among venial sins. Especially if we consider the definition of a prostitute by the highest Popish authority: for in the Decretals, Distinction 34, in the Gloss, is found this savory adage—"Meretrix est quae, admiserit plures quam viginti tria hominum millia!" That is the infallible attestation to the truth of Maria Monk's "Awful Disclosures."
4. The antecedent narrative of the Hotel Dieu Nunnery, is confirmed by the universal and constant practice of Roman Priests in all Convents. Among the works of William Huntington, is a correspondence between himself and a young lady who was converted by his ministry. The seventh letter from Miss M. contains the following passage:—
"It is a shame for women to approach those confessionals. If they were never wise in scenes of iniquity before, the priest will instruct them, by asking the most filthy questions. I was confined to my bed three days from my first confession; and thought I would never go again, being so abashed by the abominations he had put in my head. I would just as soon recommend scalding water to cure Anthony's-fire, or a wet bed in an ice-house to cure an ague, as recommend a sinner to those accursed lies, Roman penance, and Auricular Confession."—The mental purity of Nuns consists in a life totally "contrary to the laws of God, of modesty, of decency. They are constantly exposed to the obscene interrogations, and the lewd actions of the Priests. Notwithstanding God has fixed a bar on every female mind, it is broken through by the Priests putting questions to them upon those subjects, as the scripture declares, which ought not to be named? The uncommon attractions of the young women in Convents generally indicate the greatest unchastity among them. I have known girls, sent for education to the Convent where I was, who regularly stripped themselves of every thing they could obtain from their friends; which, by the artful insinuations of the Nuns, was given to them and the Priests. The Roman priesthood may well be called a sorceress, and their doctrine 'the wine of fornication,' for nothing but the powers of darkness could work up the young female mind to receive it; unless by the subtlety of the devil, and the vile artifices of the Nuns. I shudder at the idea of young ladies going into a Convent; and also at parents who send their children to be educated in a Nunnery; where their daughters are entrapped by the Nuns into the snare of the Priests, with whom they are accomplices, and for whom the most subtle of them are decoys, whose feigned sanctity is only a cover for the satanic arts of which they are complete mistresses, and by which, through the delusions of the mother of harlots, being buried alive within the walls of a Convent, they 'drink of the wine of her fornication,' until their souls pass into the pit of destruction."—The above extract is from the seventh letter of "Correspondence between Miss M. and Mr. H." in Huntington's Works; and exposes the Nunneries in France.
George D. Emeline, who had been a Popish Priest, in his "Eight Letters," giving an account of his "Journey into Italy," thus details the nature of the intimacy which then existed between the Priests and Nuns on the European Continent. "A young Monk at Milan, Preacher to the Benedictine Nuns, when he addressed them, added to almost every sentence in his discourse, 'my most dear and lovely sisters, whom I love from the deepest bottom of my heart.' When a monk becomes Preacher or Chaplain to a Nunnery, his days are passed in constant voluptuousness; for the Nuns will gratify their Confessor in every thing, that he may be equally indulgent to them." Emeline's Letters, p. 313.
"A regular Abbot of a Monastery in Italy, talking with me said—'Melius est habere nullam quam aliquem—It is better to have none than any woman.' I asked him what he meant; he replied, 'Because, when a person is not tied to one, he may make use of many;' and his practice was conformable to his doctrine; for he slept in the same bed with three young women every night. He was a most insatiable Exactor and Oppressor of the people who rented the lands of the Abbey, in consequence of which the Farmers complained of him to the Archbishop of the District. The Archbishop sent the Provost, the Farmers, and sixty of the serjeants at night, to seize him and his female companions. They took the Abbot in bed, and having put on him a morning-gown; and having tied his three concubines and himself back to back, placed them in a cart, and conducted them to the Archbishop's residence, in Bonnonia: who then refused to judge him; but sent him and his females to the Monastery of Saint Michael; into which, with some difficulty, he was admitted after midnight, in consequence of the Provost assuring the Friars, that if they would not receive the Abbot, they would procure his prelatical dress, and escort him and the young women in procession through the city, and back to his own Monastery the same day at noon. The females were ordered away, and the Abbot was appointed to remain in his monastery for fifteen days for penance, until the story had ceased to circulate. I was an eyewitness of that myself, when I was in the Monastery of St. Michael in the wood."—Emeline's Letters, pp. 387, 388, 389.
That the Nunneries in Portugal, as well as among those people in India who are subject to the Romish priesthood, are of the same character precisely, as Maria Monk describes the Priests and Nuns in Canada, is proved by Victorin de Faria, who had been a Brahman in India; and who afterward resided as a regular Roman Priest in the Paulist Monastery at Lisbon.
"The regular Priests in India," says Faria, "have become what the bonzes where in Japan. The Nuns were the disciples of Diana, and the nunneries seraglios for the monks; as I have proved to be the case in Lisbon, by facts concerning those nuns who were more often in the family way than common women. The Jesuits in the Indies made themselves Brahmans in order to enjoy the privileges of that caste, whose idolatrous rites and superstitious practices they also externally adopted."—Among other privileges which they possessed, Faria enumerates the following, as detailed from his own prior experience as a Brahman. "Never to be put to death for any crime whatever; and to enjoy the favours of every woman who pleased them, for a Priest sanctifies the woman upon whom he bestows his attentions." That is the true Papist doctrine, as shown by Maria Monk's "Awful Disclosures;" confirmed by the Canadian carpenter in Mr. Johnson's house at Montreal; and ratified by Pope Gregory XIII. in the Decretals and Canons, in the Corpus Juris Canonici. Secrets of Nunneries disclosed by Scipio de Ricci. p. 217.
The Nunneries in Italy during the present generation are of the same description. Maria Catharine Barni, Maria Magdalen Sicini, and Victoire Benedetti, of the Nunnery called Santa Croce: all acknowledged, that they had been seduced at confession, and that they had habitually maintained criminal intercourse with a Priest called Pacchiani, who absolved his guilty companions after the commission of their crimes. Secrets of Nunneries disclosed by Scipio de Ricci. pp. 60, 61.
Six Nuns of the Convent of Catharine at Pistoia declared that the Priests who visited the Convent committed a "thousand indecorous acts. They utter the worst expressions, saying that we should look upon it as a great happiness, that we have the power of satisfying our appetites without the annoyance of children; and that we should not hesitate to take our pleasures. Men, who have contrived to get the keys, come into the Convent during the night, which they have spent in the most dissipated manner." That is the precise delineation of the Canadian Nunneries; into which other men besides Priests are admitted, if the parties are willing to pay the entrance bribe to the Chaplain.—Secrets of Nunneries, by Scipio de Ricci. pp. 80, 81.
Flavia Perraccini, Prioress of the Nunnery of Catharine of Pistoia, revealed what she knew of that and other Nunneries. All the Priests "are of the same character. They all have the same maxims and the same conduct. They are on more intimate terms with the nuns than if they were married to them. It is the same at Lucia, at Pisa, at Prato, and at Perugia. The Superiors do not know even the smallest part of the enormous wickedness that goes on between the Monks and the Nuns."—Secrets of Nunneries, by Scipio de Ricci. p. 93. That statement is so exactly conformed to Maria Monk's "Awful Disclosures," that were it not a fact that she had never seen Scipio de Ricci's work it might almost be supposed that some part of her narrative had been transcribed from it.
Foggini of Rome, also wrote to Scipio de Ricci and informed him—"I know a monastery in which a Jesuit used to make the Nuns lift up their clothes, assuring them that they thereby performed an act of virtue, because they overcame a natural repugnance."—Secrets of Nunneries, p. 101. That is a very extraordinary illustration of the turpitude of the Roman Priesthood; because that doctrine is a principle which they constantly inculcate; and such is the invariable practice in the Hotel Dieu Nunnery, that the Nuns were obliged to fulfil, for the beastly gratification of the Roman Priests who visited that house, which is "the way to hell, going down to the chambers of death." Proverbs 7:27.
It is superfluous to multiply similar extracts. Scipio de Ricci was a Popish prelate, regularly commissioned by the Grand Duke of Tuscany to explore the Nunneries; and in consequence of his authentic developments, the Jesuits and Dominicans, and the dignified Papal ecclesiastics, with the two Popes, Pius VI. and Pius VII. all opposed, reviled, condemned and worried him almost to death.
One quotation more shall close this survey. Pope Paul III. maintained at Rome, forty-five thousand courtesans. Pope Sixtus IV. ordered a number of edifices to be erected expressly for the accommodation of the semi-Nuns of Rome, from whose impurity he derived a large annual revenue, under the form of a license; besides which, the prices of absolution for the different violations of the seventh commandment are as regularly fixed as the value of beads, soul-masses, blessed water, and every other article of Popish manufacture. Paolo, Hist. Council de Trent. Book I. Anno 1637.
The preceding observations, it is believed, will remove the doubts from the mind of every impartial inquirer, respecting the credibility of Maria Monk's narrative: nevertheless, a few additional remarks may not be irrelevant: especially as there is a marvellous skepticism in reference to the admission of valid testimony concerning the Roman priesthood, their system and practice. We are deafened with clamour for proof to substantiate Maria Monk's history: but that demand is tantamount to the declaration—"I will not believe."
In anticipation of speedy death, and an immediate appearance at the dread tribunal of Jehovah, Maria Monk communicated to Mr. Tappan, the Chaplain at Bellevue, one of the benevolent institutions belonging to the city of New York, the principal facts in her "Awful Disclosures." After her unexpected recovery, she personally appeared at Montreal, expressly and openly, to promulge her allegations of atrocious crimes against the chief Roman Ecclesiastics in that city, who were armed with power, and having nearly all the population her infuriated enemies. There she remained almost four weeks, constantly daring the Roman Priests and Nuns in vain. It is true, Dr. Robertson in his affidavit says, that he was willing "to take the necessary steps for a full investigation, if a direct charge were made against any particular individual of a criminal nature." Now if Maria Monk's charges are not direct, OF A CRIMINAL NATURE, and against PARTICULAR INDIVIDUALS—what charges can be so characterized? The fact is this:—Dr. Robertson would no more dare to issue a warrant for the apprehension of Lartigue, or any of the inferior Roman Priests in Montreal, than he would dare publicly to strike the Commander of the Garrison, or the Governor of Canada upon military parade. If any Papist had stated to him the same facts concerning a Protestant, or Protestant Minister, and offered to confirm them by his worthless oath, he would have issued his process at once; but Dr. Robertson knows, that in the present state of Canadian society, Roman Priests can do what they please; and no man dares to reprove, much less to "take any necessary steps for a full investigation" for their crimes. If the Jesuits and Nuns at Montreal are anxious for a full and impartial scrutiny of the Hotel Dieu Convent, Maria Monk is ready to oblige them with some facilities for that object; provided she may carry them out to all their extent and application. Mr. Ogden has one affidavit, and knows the whole matter; as can incontestably be proved by Mr. A. P. Hart, an Attorney of Montreal; and we recommend Dr. Robertson to issue his warrant for the apprehension of Lartigue, Bonin, Dufresne, and Richards, they are enough to begin with; and if Mr. Ogden will carry the facts with which he is acquainted to the Grand Jury, one witness in New York is ready to appear; and Dr. Robertson will find his hands full of employment, if he will only "take the necessary steps" to procure two or three persons who shall be pointed out to him in the Hotel Dieu Nunnery. Therefore, until Dr. Robertson commences some incipient measures as a Magistrate towards "the necessary steps for a full investigation," as he says, we shall be forced to believe, that the printer made a mistake in his affidavit, and put willing for unwilling.
The cavilling call, however, for additional evidence to be adduced by Maria Monk, is manifestly futile. That testimony is within the jurisdiction of the Priests alone who are criminated. Maria Monk reiterates her charge against the Romish Ecclesiastics of Canada and their Nuns; and she has solemnly sworn that they are true. What more can she do? Nothing, but to search the premises, to see whether the statements which she has made are correct. A Committee of the New York Protestant Association are willing to accompany her to Montreal; to walk through the Hotel Dieu Nunnery in company with any Gentlemen of Montreal, and investigate the truth without favour or partiality, Maria Monk is willing to submit the whole affair to that short, and easy, and sensible test; in which there is no possibility of deception. It does not depend upon credibility of witnesses, conflicting evidence, personal friendship, or religions prejudices; it is reduced at once to that unerring criterion; the sight and the touch!
But, it is retorted, that will not be granted; then we repeat another proposal: let the Priest Conroy come forth girded in all the panoply of the Roman court, and appear as the champion of the Canadian Jesuits; let him institute an action, civil or criminal, or both, against the publishers of such atrocious crimes, which, as they pretend, are falsely alleged against the Roman Priests. If Lartigue and his Montreal inferior priests are implicated in the most nefarious felonies, Maria Monk has published him as a virtuous accomplice. Why does he not put her truth to the test, by subjecting her to a criminal process? Why does he not commence a suit against the Booksellers who published her "Awful Disclosures?"—Ah! if Lartigue, Bonin, Dufresne, and Richards, with their brethren, Conroy, Phelan, Kelly and Quarter, were coerced to keep Lent, and live only upon soup-maigre, until that day arrives, they would not much longer portray in their exterior, that they live upon the fat of the land; but they would vociferously whine out—"Mea culpa! O mea grandis culpa! O mea grandissima culpa! Peccava! Peccavi! Peccavi!"
had their quantum, or ordinary, served out, where any good oeconomy was kept, apart to themselves [87]. Again, we find in our Roll, that great quantities of the respective viands of the hashes, were often made at once, as No. 17, Take hennes or conynges. 24, Take hares. 29, Take pygges. And 31, Take gees, &c. So that hospitality and plentiful housekeeping could just as well be maintained this way, as by the other of cumbrous unwieldy messes, as much as a man could carry.
As the messes and sauces are so complex, and the ingredients consequently so various, it seems necessary that a word should be spoken concerning the principal of them, and such as are more frequently employed, before we pass to our method of proceeding in the publication.
Butter is little used. 'Tis first mentioned No. 81, and occurs but rarely after [88]; 'tis found but once in the Editor's MS, where it is written boter. The usual substitutes for it are oil-olive and lard; the latter is frequently called grees, or grece, or whitegrece, as No. 18. 193. Capons in Grease occur in Birch's Life of Henry prince of Wales, p. 459, 460. and see Lye in Jun. Etym. v. Greasie. Bishop Patrick has a remarkable passage concerning this article: 'Though we read of cheese in Homer, Euripides, Theocritus, and others, yet they never mention butter: nor hath Aristotle a word of it, though he hath sundry observations about cheese; for butter was not a thing then known among the Greeks; though we see by this and many other places, it was an ancient food among the eastern people [89].' The Greeks, I presume, used oil instead of it, and butter in some places of scripture is thought to mean only cream. [90]
Cheese. See the last article, and what is said of the old Britons above; as likewise our Glossary.
Ale is applied, No. 113, et alibi; and often in the Editor's MS. as 6, 7, &c. It is used instead of wine, No. 22, and sometimes along with bread in the Editor's MS. [91] Indeed it is a current opinion that brewing with hops was not introduced here till the reign of king Henry VIII. [92] Bere, however, is mentioned A. 1504. [93]
Wine is common, both red, and white, No. 21. 53. 37. This article they partly had of their own growth, [94] and partly by importation from France [95] and Greece [96]. They had also Rhenish [97], and probably several other sorts. The vynegreke is among the sweet wines in a MS of Mr. Astle.
Rice. As this grain was but little, if at all, cultivated in England, it must have been brought from abroad. Whole or ground-rice enters into a large number of our compositions, and resmolle, No. 96, is a direct preparation of it.
Alkenet. Anchusa is not only used for colouring, but also fried and yfoundred, 62. yfondyt, 162. i. e. dissolved, or ground. 'Tis thought to be a species of the buglos.
Saffron. Saffrwm, Brit. whence it appears, that this name ran through most languages. Mr. Weever informs us, that this excellent drug was brought hither in the time of Edward III. [98] and it may be true; but still no such quantity could be produced here in the next reign as to supply that very large consumption which we see made of it in our Roll, where it occurs not only as an ingredient in the processes, but also is used for colouring, for flourishing, or garnishing. It makes a yellow, No. 68, and was imported from Egypt, or Cilicia, or other parts of the Levant, where the Turks call it Safran, from the Arabic Zapheran, whence the English, Italians, French, and Germans, have apparently borrowed their respective names of it. The Romans were well acquainted with the drug, but did not use it much in the kitchen [99]. Pere Calmet says, the Hebrews were acquainted with anise, ginger, saffron, but no other spices [100].
Pynes. There is some difficulty in enucleating the meaning of this word, though it occurs so often. It is joined with dates, No. 20. 52. with honey clarified, 63. with powder-fort, saffron, and salt, 161. with ground dates, raisins, good powder, and salt, 186. and lastly they are fried, 38. Now the dish here is morree, which in the Editor's MS. 37, is made of mulberries (and no doubt has its name from them), and yet there are no mulberries in our dish, but pynes, and therefore I suspect, that mulberries and pynes are the same, and indeed this fruit has some resemblance to a pynecone. I conceive pynnonade, the dish, No. 51, to be so named from the pynes therein employed; and quÆre whether pyner mentioned along with powder-fort, saffron, and salt, No. 155, as above in No. 161, should not be read pynes. But, after all, we have cones brought hither from Italy full of nuts, or kernels, which upon roasting come out of their capsulÆ, and are much eaten by the common people, and these perhaps may be the thing intended.
[Addenda: after intended. add, 'See Ray, Trav. p. 283. 407. and Wright's Trav. p. 112.']
Honey was the great and universal sweetner in remote antiquity, and particularly in this island, where it was the chief constituent of mead and metheglin. It is said, that at this day in Palestine they use honey in the greatest part of their ragouts [101]. Our cooks had a method of clarifying it, No. 18. 41. which was done by putting it in a pot with whites of eggs and water, beating them well together; then setting it over the fire, and boiling it; and when it was ready to boil over to take it and cool it, No. 59. This I presume is called clere honey, No. 151. And, when honey was so much in use, it appears from Barnes that refining it was a trade of itself [102].
Sugar, or Sugur [103], was now beginning here to take place of honey; however, they are used together, No. 67. Sugar came from the Indies, by way of Damascus and Aleppo, to Venice, Genoa, and Pisa, and from these last places to us [104]. It is here not only frequently used, but was of various sorts, as cypre, No. 41. 99. 120. named probably from the isle of Cyprus, whence it might either come directly to us, or where it had received some improvement by way of refining. There is mention of blanch-powder or white sugar, 132. They, however, were not the same, for see No. 193. Sugar was clarified sometimes with wine [105].
Spices. Species. They are mentioned in general No. 133, and whole spices, 167, 168. but they are more commonly specified, and are indeed greatly used, though being imported from abroad, and from so far as Italy or the Levant (and even there must be dear), some may wonder at this: but it shouid be considered, that our Roll was chiefly compiled for the use of noble and princely tables; and the same may be said of the Editor's MS. The spices came from the same part of the world, and by the same route, as sugar did. The spicery was an ancient department at court, and had its proper officers.
As to the particular sorts, these are,
Cinamon. Canell. 14. 191. Canel, Editor's MS. 10. Kanell, ibid. 32. is the Italian Canella. See Chaucer. We have the flour or powder, No. 20. 62. See Wiclif. It is not once mentioned in Apicius.
Macys, 14. 121. Editor's MS. 10. Maces, 134. Editor's MS. 27. They are used whole, No. 158. and are always expressed plurally, though we now use the singular, mace. See Junii Etym.
Cloves. No. 20. Dishes are flourished with them, 22. 158. Editor's MS. 10. 27. where we have clowys gylofres, as in our Roll, No. 104. Powdour gylofre occurs 65. 191. Chaucer has clowe in the singular, and see him v. Clove-gelofer.
Galyngal, 30. and elsewhere. Galangal, the long rooted cyperus [106], is a warm cardiac and cephalic. It is used in powder, 30. 47. and was the chief ingredient in galentine, which, I think, took its name from it.
Pepper. It appears from Pliny that this pungent, warm seasoning, so much in esteem at Rome [107], came from the East Indies [108], and, as we may suppose, by way of Alexandria. We obtained it no doubt, in the 14th century, from the same quarter, though not exactly by the same route, but by Venice or Genoa. It is used both whole, No. 35, and in powder, No. 83. And long-pepper occurs, if we read the place rightly, in No. 191.
Ginger, gyngyn. 64. 136. alibi. Powder is used, 17. 20. alibi. and Rabelais IV. c. 59. the white powder, 131. and it is the name of a mess, 139. quÆre whether gyngyn is not misread for gyngyr, for see Junii Etym. The Romans had their ginger from Troglodytica [109].
Cubebs, 64. 121. are a warm spicy grain from the east.
Grains of Paradice, or de parys, 137. [110] are the greater cardamoms.
Noix muscadez, 191. nutmegs.
The caraway is once mentioned, No. 53. and was an exotic from Caria, whence, according to Mr. Lye, it took its name: 'sunt semina, inquit, carri vel carrei, sic dicti a Caria, ubi copiosissimÈ nascitur [111].'
Powder-douce, which occurs so often, has been thought by some, who have just peeped into our Roll, to be the same as sugar, and only a different name for it; but they are plainly mistaken, as is evident from 47. 51. 164. 165. where they are mentioned together as different things. In short, I take powder-douce to be either powder of galyngal, for see Editor's MS II. 20. 24, or a compound made of sundry aromatic spices ground or beaten small, and kept always ready at hand in some proper receptacle. It is otherwise termed good powders, 83. 130. and in Editor's MS 17. 37. 38 [112]. or powder simply, No. 169, 170. White powder-douce occurs No. 51, which seems to be the same as blanch-powder, 132. 193. called blaynshe powder, and bought ready prepared, in Northumb. Book, p. 19. It is sometimes used with powder-fort, 38. 156. for which see the next and last article.
Powder-fort, 10. 11. seems to be a mixture likewise of the warmer spices, pepper, ginger, &c. pulverized: hence we have powder-fort of gynger, other of canel, 14. It is called strong powder, 22. and perhaps may sometimes be intended by good powders. If you will suppose it to be kept ready prepared by the vender, it may be the powder-marchant, 113. 118. found joined in two places with powder- douce. This Speght says is what gingerbread is made of; but Skinner disapproves this explanation, yet, says Mr. Urry, gives none of his own.
After thus travelling through the most material and most used ingredients, the spykenard de spayn occurring only once, I shall beg leave to offer a few words on the nature, and in favour of the present publication, and the method employed in the prosecution of it.
[Illustration: Take Þe chese and of flessh of capouns, or of hennes & hakke smal and grynde hem smale inn a morter, take mylke of almandes with Þe broth of freysh beef. oÞer freysh flessh, & put the flessh in Þe mylke oÞer in the broth and set hem to Þe fyre, & alye hem with flour of ryse, or gastbon, or amydoun as chargeaunt as Þe blank desire, & with zolks of ayren and safroun for to make hit zelow, and when it is dressit in dysshes with blank desires; styk aboue clowes de gilofre, & strawe powdour of galyugale above, and serue it forth.]
The common language of the formulÆ, though old and obsolete, as naturally may be expected from the age of the MS, has no other difficulty in it but what may easily be overcome by a small degree of practice and application [113]: however, for the further illustration of this matter, and the satisfaction of the curious, a fac simile of one of the recipes is represented in the annexed plate. If here and there a hard and uncouth term or expression may occur, so as to stop or embarrass the less expert, pains have been taken to explain them, either in the annotations under the text, or in the Index and Glossary, for we have given it both titles, as intending it should answer the purpose of both [114]. Now in forming this alphabet, as it would have been an endless thing to have recourse to all our glossaries, now so numerous, we have confined ourselves, except perhaps in some few instances, in which the authorities are always mentioned, to certain contemporary writers, such as the Editor's MS, of which we shall speak more particularly hereafter, Chaucer, and Wiclif; with whom we have associated Junius' Etymologicon Anglicanum.
As the abbreviations of the Roll are here retained, in order to establish and confirm the age of it, it has been thought proper to adopt the types which our printer had projected for Domesday-Book, with which we find that our characters very nearly coincide.
The names of the dishes and sauces have occasioned the greatest perplexity. These are not only many in number, but are often so horrid and barbarous, to our ears at least, as to be inveloped in several instances in almost impenetrable obscurity. Bishop Godwin complains of this so long ago as 1616 [115]. The Contents prefixed will exhibit at once a most formidable list of these hideous names and titles, so that there is no need to report them here. A few of these terms the Editor humbly hopes he has happily enucleated, but still, notwithstanding all his labour and pains, the argument is in itself so abstruse at this distance of time, the helps so few, and his abilities in this line of knowledge and science so slender and confined, that he fears he has left the far greater part of the task for the more sagacious reader to supply: indeed, he has not the least doubt, but other gentlemen of curiosity in such matters (and this publication is intended for them alone) will be so happy as to clear up several difficulties, which appear now to him insuperable. It must be confessed again, thatthe Editor may probably have often failed in those very points, which he fancies and flatters himself to have elucidated, but this he is willing to leave to the candour of the public.
Now in regard to the helps I mentioned; there is not much to be learnt from the Great Inthronization-feast of archbishop Robert Winchelsea, A. 1295, even if it were his; but I rather think it belongs to archbishop William Warham, A. 1504 [116]. Some use, however, has been made of it.
Ralph Bourne was installed abbot of St. Augustine's, near Canterbury, A. 1309; and William Thorne has inserted a list of provisions bought for the feast, with their prices, in his Chronicle [117].
The Great Feast at the Inthronization of George Nevile archbishop of York, 6 Edward IV. is printed by Mr. Hearne [118], and has been of good service.
Elizabeth, queen of king Henry VII. was crowned A. 1487, and the messes at the dinner, in two courses, are registered in the late edition of Leland's Collectenea, A. 1770 [119], and we have profited thereby.
The Lenten Inthronization-feast of archbishop William Warham, A. 1504 [120], given us at large by Mr. Hearne [121], has been also consulted.
There is a large catalogue of viands in Rabelais, lib. iv. cap. 59. 60. And the English translation of Mr. Ozell affording little information, I had recourse to the French original, but not to much more advantage.
There is also a Royal Feast at the wedding of the earl of Devonshire, in the Harleian Misc. No. 279, and it has not been neglected.
Randle Holme, in his multifarious Academy of Armory, has an alphabet of terms and dishes [122]; but though I have pressed him into the service, he has not contributed much as to the more difficult points.
The Antiquarian Repertory, vol. II. p. 211, exhibits an entertainment of the mayor of Rochester, A. 1460; but there is little to be learned from thence. The present work was printed before No. 31 of the Antiquarian Repertory, wherein some ancient recipes in Cookery are published, came to the Editor's hand.
I must not omit my acknowledgments to my learned friend the present dean of Carlisle, to whom I stand indebted for his useful notes on the Northumberland-Household Book, as also for the book itself.
Our chief assistance, however, has been drawn from a MS belonging to the Editor, denoted, when cited, by the signature MS. Ed. It is a vellum miscellany in small quarto, and the part respecting this subject consists of ninety-one English recipes (or nyms) in cookery. These are disposed into two parts, and are intituled, 'Hic incipiunt universa servicia tam de carnibus quam de pissibus.' [123] The second part, relates to the dressing of fish, and other lenten fare, though forms are also there intermixed which properly belong to flesh-days. This leads me to observe, that both here, and in the Roll, messes are sometimes accommodated, by making the necessary alterations, both to flesh and fish-days. [124] Now, though the subjects of the MS are various, yet the hand-writing is uniform; and at the end of one of the tracts is added, 'Explicit massa Compoti, Anno DÑi M'lo CCC'mo octogesimo primo ipso die Felicis et Audacti.' [125], i.e. 30 Aug. 1381, in the reign of Rich. II. The language and orthography accord perfectly well with this date, and the collection is consequently contemporary with our Roll, and was made chiefly, though not altogether, for the use of great tables, as appears from the sturgeon, and the great quantity of venison therein prescribed for.
As this MS is so often referred to in the annotations, glossary, and even in this preface, and is a compilation of the same date, on the same subject, and in the same language, it has been thought adviseable to print it, and subjoin it to the Roll; and the rather, because it really furnishes a considerable enlargement on the subject, and exhibits many forms unnoticed in the Roll.
To conclude this tedious preliminary detail, though unquestionably a most necessary part of his duty, the Editor can scarcely forbear laughing at himself, when he reflects on his past labours, and recollects those lines of the poet Martial;
Turpe est difficiles habere nugas, Et stultus labor est ineptiarum. II. 86.
and that possibly mesdames Carter and Raffald, with twenty others, might have far better acquitted themselves in the administration of this province, than he has done. He has this comfort and satisfaction, however, that he has done his best; and that some considerable names amongst the learned, Humelbergius, Torinus, Barthius, our countryman Dr. Lister, Almeloveen, and others, have bestowed no less pains in illustrating an author on the same subject, and scarcely of more importance, the Pseudo-Apicius.
[1] If, according to Petavius and Le Clerc, the world was created in autumn, when the fruits of the earth were both plentiful and in the highest perfection, the first man had little occasion for much culinary knowledge; roasting or boiling the cruder productions, with modes of preserving those which were better ripened, seem to be all that was necessary for him in the way of Cury, And even after he was displaced from Paradise, I conceive, as many others do, he was not permitted the use of animal food [Gen. i. 29.]; but that this was indulged to us, by an enlargement of our charter, after the Flood, Gen. ix, 3. But, without wading any further in the argument here, the reader is referred to Gen. ii. 8. seq. iii. 17, seq. 23.
[Addenda: add 'vi. 22. where Noah and the beasts are to live on the same food.'] [2] Genesis xviii. xxvii. Though their best repasts, from the politeness of the times, were called by the simple names of Bread, or a Morsel of bread, yet they were not unacquainted with modes of dressing flesh, boiling, roasting, baking; nor with sauce, or seasoning, as salt and oil, and perhaps some aromatic herbs. Calmet v. Meats and Eating, and qu. of honey and cream, ibid. [3] AthenÆus, lib. xii. cap. 3. [4] AthenÆus, lib. xii. cap. 3. et Cafaubon. See also Lister ad Apicium, prÆf. p. ix. Jungerm. ad Jul. Polluccm, lib. vi. c. 10. [5] See below. 'Tamen uterque [Torinus et Humelbergius] hÆc scripta [i, e. Apicii] ad medicinam vendicarunt.' Lister, prÆf. p. iv. viii. ix. [6] AthenaÆus, p. 519. 660. [7] Priv. Life of the Romans, p. 171. Lister's PrÆf, p. iii, but Ter. An, i. 1. Casaub. ad Jul. Capitolin. cap. 5. [8] Casaub. ad Capitolin. l. c. [9] Lister's PrÆf. p. ii. vi. xii. [10] Fabric. Bibl. Lat. tom. II. p. 794. Hence Dr. Bentley ad Hor. ii. ferm. 8. 29. stiles it Pseudapicius. Vide Listerum, p. iv. [11] CÆsar de B. G. v. § 10. [12] Strabo, lib. iv. p. 200. Pegge's Essay on Coins of Cunob, p. 95. [13] ArchÆologia, iv. p. 61. Godwin, de PrÆsul. p. 596, seq. [14] Malmsb. p. 9. Galfr. Mon. vi. 12. [15] Lister. ad Apic. p. xi. where see more to the same purpose. [16] Spelm. Life of Ælfred, p. 66. Drake, Eboracum. Append, p. civ. [17] Speed's History. [18] Mons. Mallet, cap. 12. [19] Wilkins, Concil. I. p. 204. Drake, Ebor. p. 316. Append, p. civ. cv. [20] Menage, Orig. v. Gourmand. [21] Lord Lyttelton, Hist. of H. II. vol. iii. p. 49. [22] Harrison, Descript. of Britain, p. 165, 166. [23] Stow, p. 102. 128. [24] Lord Lyttelton observes, that the Normans were delicate in their food, but without excess. Life of Hen. II. vol. III. p. 47. [25] Dugd. Bar. I. p. 109. Henry II. served to his son. Lord Lyttelton, IV. p. 298. [26] Godwin de PrÆsul. p. 695, renders Carver by Dapiser, but this I cannot approve. See Thoroton. p. 23. 28. Dugd. Bar. I. p. 441. 620. 109. Lib. Nig. p. 342. Kennet, Par. Ant. p. 119. And, to name no more, Spelm. in voce. The Carver was an officer inferior to the Dapiser, or Steward, and even under his control. Vide Lel. Collect. VI. p. 2. And yet I find Sir Walter Manny when young was carver to Philippa queen of king Edward III. Barnes Hist. of E. III. p. 111. The Steward had the name of Dapiser, I apprehend, from serving up the first dish. V. supra. [27] Sim. Dunelm. col. 227. Hoveden, p. 469. Malms. de Pont. p. 286. [28] Lib. Nig. Scaccarii, p. 347. [29] Fleta, II. cap. 75. [30] Du Fresne, v. Magister. [31] Du Fresne, ibid. [32] Du Fresne, v. Coquus. The curious may compare this List with Lib. Nig. p. 347. [33] In Somner, Ant. Cant. Append. p. 36. they are under the Magister CoquinÆ, whose office it was to purvey; and there again the chief cooks are proveditors; different usages might prevail at different times and places. But what is remarkable, the Coquinarius, or Kitchener, which seems to answer to Magister CoquinÆ, is placed before the Cellarer in Tanner's Notitia, p. xxx. but this may be accidental. [34] Du Fresne, v. Coquus. [35] Somner, Append. p. 36. [36] Somner, Ant. Cant. Append. p. 36. [37] Somner, p. 41. [38] Somner, p. 36, 37, 39, sÆpius. [39] Somner, l. c. [40] M. Paris, p4. 69. [41] Dugd. Bar. I. p. 45. Stow, p. 184. M. Paris, p. 377. 517. M.
Westm. p. 364. [42] Lel. Collectan. VI. p. 7. seq. [43] Ibid. p. 9. 13. [44] Compare Leland, p. 3. with Godwin de PrÆsul. p. 695. and so Junius in Etymol. v. Sewer. [45] Leland, p. 8, 9. There are now two yeomen of the mouth in the king's household. [46] That of George Neville, archbishop of York, 6 Edw. IV. and that of William Warham, archbishop of Canterbury, A.D. 1504. These were both of them inthronization feasts. Leland, Collectan. VI. p. 2 and 16 of Appendix. They were wont minuere sanguinem after these superb entertainments, p. 32. [47] Hor. II. Od. xiv. 28. where see Mons. Dacier. [48] Sixty-two were employed by archbishop Neville. And the hire of cooks at archbishop Warham's feast came to 23 l. 6 s. 8 d. [49] Strype, Life of Cranmer, p. 451, or Lel. Coll. ut supra, p. 38. Sumptuary laws in regard to eating were not unknown in ancient Rome. Erasm. Colloq. p. 81. ed. Schrev. nor here formerly, see Lel. Coll. VI. p. 36. for 5 Ed. II. [50] I presume it may be the same Roll which Mr. Hearne mentions in his Lib. Nig. Scaccarii, I. p. 346. See also three different letters of his to the earl of Oxford, in the Brit. Mus. in the second of which he stiles the Roll a piece of antiquity, and a very great rarity indeed. Harl. MSS. No. 7523. [51] See the Proem. [52] This lord was grandson of Edward duke of Bucks, beheaded A. 1521, whose son Henry was restored in blood; and this Edward, the grandson, born about 1571, might be 14 or 15 years old when he presented the Roll to the Queen. [53] Mr. Topham's MS. has socas among the fish; and see archbishop Nevil's Feast, 6 E. IV. to be mentioned below. [54] Of which see an account below. [55] See Northumb. Book, p. 107, and Notes. [56] As to carps, they were unknown in England t. R. II. Fulier, Worth. in Sussex, p. 98. 113. Stow, Hist. 1038. [57] The Italians still call the hop cattiva erba. There was a petition against them t. H. VI. Fuller, Worth. p. 317, &c. Evelyn, Sylva, p. 201. 469. ed. Hunter. [58] Lister, PrÆf. ad Apicium, p. xi. [59] So we have lozengs of golde. Lel. Collect. IV. p. 227. and a wild boar's head gylt, p. 294. A peacock with gylt neb. VI. p. 6. Leche Lambart gylt, ibid. [60] No. 68. 20. 58. See my friend Dr. Percy on the Northumberland- Book, p. 415. and MS Ed. 34. [61] No. 47. 51. 84.
[62] No. 93. 132. MS Ed. 37. [63] Perhaps Turmerick. See ad loc. [64] Ter. Andr. I. 1. where Donatus and Mad. Dacier explain it of Cooking. Mr. Hearne, in describing our Roll, see above, p. xi, by an unaccountable mistake, read Fary instead of Cury, the plain reading of the MS. [65] Junii Etym. v. Diet. [66] Reginaldus Phisicus. M. Paris, p. 410. 412. 573. 764. Et in Vit. p. 94. 103. Chaucer's Medicus is a doctor of phisick, p.4. V. Junii Etym. voce Physician. For later times, v. J. Rossus, p. 93. [67] That of Donatus is modest 'Culina medicinÆ famulacrix est.' [68] Lel. Collect. IV. p. 183. 'Diod. Siculus refert primos Ægypti Reges victum quotidianum omnino sumpsisse ex medicorum prÆscripto.' Lister ad Apic. p. ix. [69] See also Lylie's Euphues, p. 282. Cavendish, Life of Wolsey, p. 151, where we have callis, malÈ; Cole's and Lyttleton's Dict. and Junii Etymolog. v. Collice. [70] See however, No. 191, and Editor's MS II. 7. [71] Vide the proeme. [72] See above. [73] Univ. Hist. XV. p. 352. 'Æsopus pater linguas avium humana vocales lingua cÆnavit; filius margaritas.' Lister ad Apicium, p. vii. [74] Jul. Capitolinus, c. 5. [75] AthenÆus, lib. xii. c. 7. Something of the same kind is related of Heliogabalus, Lister PrÆf. ad Apic. p. vii. [76] To omit the paps of a pregnant sow, Hor. I. Ep. xv. 40. where see Mons. Dacier; Dr. Fuller relates, that the tongue of carps were accounted by the ancient Roman palate-men most delicious meat. Worth. in Sussex. See other instances of extravagant Roman luxury in Lister's PrÆf. to Apicius, p. vii. [77] See, however, No. 33, 34, 35, 146.
[Addenda: add 'reflect on the Spanish Olio or Olla podrida, and the French fricassÉe.'] [78] The king, in Shakespeare, Hen. VIII. act iv. sc. 2. and 3. calls the gifts of the sponsors, spoons. These were usually gilt, and, the figures of the apostles being in general carved on them, were called apostle spoons. See Mr. Steevens's note in Ed. 1778, vol. VII. p. 312, also Gent. Mag. 1768, p. 426. [79] Lel. Collect. IV. p. 328. VI. p. 2. [80] See Dr. Percy's curious notes on the Northumb. Book, p. 417. [81] Ibid. VI. p. 5. 18. [82] They were not very common at table among the Greeks. Casaub. ad AthenÆum, col. 278. but see Lel. Coll. VI. p. 7. [83] Leland, Collectan. VI. p. 2. Archbishop Warham also had his carver, ibid. p. 18. See also, IV. p. 236. 240. He was a great officer. Northumb. Book, p. 445. [84] Ames, Typ. Ant. p. 90. The terms may also be seen in Rand. Holme III. p. 78. [85] Dr. Percy, 1. c. [86] Thicknesse, Travels, p., 260. [87] Dr. Birch, Life of Henry prince of Wales, p. 457. seq. [88] No. 91, 92. 160. [89] Bishop Patrick on Genesis xviii. 8. [90] Calmer, v. Butter. So Judges iv, 19. compared with v. 25. [91] Ib. No. 13, 14, 15. [92] Stow, Hist. p. 1038. [93] Lel. Coll. VI. p. 30. and see Dr. Percy on Northumb. Book, p. 414. [94] ArchÆologia, I. p. 319. Ill, p. 53. [95] Barrington's Observ. on Statutes, p. 209. 252. Edit. 3d. ArchÆolog. I. p. 330. Fitz-Stephen, p. 33. Lel. Coll. VI. p. 14. Northumb. Book, p. 6. and notes. [96] No. 20. 64. 99. [97] No. 99. [98] Fun. Mon. p. 624 [99] Dr. Lister, PrÆf. ad Apicium, p. xii. [100] Calmet. Dict. v. Eating. [101] Calmet. Dict. v. Meats. [102] Barnes, Hist. of E. III. p. 111. [103] No. 70, Editor's MS. 17. alibi. [104] Moll, Geogr. II. p. 130. Harris, Coll. of Voyages, I. p. 874. Ed. Campbell. [105] No. 20. 148. [106] Glossary to Chaucer. See the Northumb. Book, p. 415 and 19. also Quincy's Dispens. and Brookes's Nat. Hist. of Vegetables. [107] Lister, PrÆf. ad Apicium, p. xii. [108] Plinius, Nat. Hist. XII. cap. 7. [109] Bochart. III. col. 332. [110] See our Gloss. voce Greynes. [111] Lye, in Junii Etymolog. [112] But see the next article. [113] Doing, hewing, hacking, grinding, kerving, &c. are easily understood. [114] By combining the Index and Glossary together, we have had an opportunity of elucidating some terms more at large than could conveniently be done in the notes. We have also cast the Index to the Roll, and that to the Editor's MS, into one alphabet; distinguishing, however, the latter from the former. [115] Godwin de PrÆsul. p. 684. [116] In Dr. Drake's edition of archbishop Parker, p. lxiii. it is given to archbishop Winchelsea: but see Mr. Battely's Append. to Cantuaria Sacra, p. 27. or the ArchÆologia, I. p. 330. and Leland's Collectanea, VI. p. 30. where it is again printed, and more at large, and ascribed to Warham. [117] Thorne, Chron. inter X Script. Col. 2010. or Lel. Collect. VI. p. 34. Ed. 1770. [118] Leland, Collect. VI. p. 2. See also Randle Holme, III. p. 77. Bishop Godwin de PrÆsul. p. 695. Ed. Richardson; where there are some considerable variations in the messes or services, and he and the Roll in Leland will correct one another. [119] Vol. IV. p. 226. [120] See first paragraph before. [121] Leland's Collect. VI. p. 16. [122] Holme, Acad. of Armory, III. p. 81. [123] It is pissibus again in the title to the Second Part. [124] No. 7. 84. here No. 17. 35. 97. [125] In the common calendars of our missals and breviaries, the latter saint is called Adauctus, but in the Kalend. Roman. of Joh. Fronto, Paris. 1652, p. 126, he is written Audactus, as here; and see Martyrolog. BedÆ, p. 414.
