Notes and Queries, Number 212, November 19, 1853 / A Medium of Inter-communication for Literary Men, Artists, Antiquaries, Genealogists, etc.

contents justify the title. Extravagance and the far-fetched were the gauge of wit: Donne, Herbert, and many a man of genius foundered on this rock, as well as Cowley, who acted up to his own definition:
In a true Piece of Wit all things must be,
Yet all things there agree;
As in the Ark , join'd without force or strife,
All creatures dwelt—all creatures that had life.
It is not, however, for the purpose of illustrating this mania that I am about to dwell on the two similes which form the subject of my present Note: I selected them as favourite party-similes which formed a standing dish for old Anglican writers; and also because they throw light on the history of religious party in England, and thus form a suitable supplement to my article on High Church and Low Church (Vol. viii., p. 117.).
As the object of the Church of England, in separating from Rome, was the reformation , not the destruction of her former faith, by the very act of reformation she found herself opposed to two bodies; namely, that from which she separated, and the ultra-reformers or Puritans, who clamoured for a radical reformation.
Taking these as the Scylla and Charybdis—the two extremes to be avoided—the Anglican Church hoped to attain the safe and golden mean by steering between these opposites, and find, in this via media course, the path of truth.
Without farther preface, I shall give the title of a curious work, which will tell its own story:
Foxes and Firebrands ; or A Specimen of the Danger and Harmony of Popery and Separation . Wherein is proved from undeniable Matter of Fact and Reason, that Separation from the Church of England is, in the Judgment of Papists, and by Experience, found the most Compendious way to introduce Popery, and to ruine the Protestant Religion: ' Tantum Religio potuit suadere Malorum. '
The Papists on the one hand, and the Puritans on the other, did endeavour to sully and bespatter the glory of her Reformation: the one taxing it with innovation, and the other with superstition.