Footnotes: 1. Sieni aquila provocans ad volandam pullos suos et super eos volians expandit alas suas—Deuteron. cap. 22.
XIV.
Both from our author's letters, and from what is recollected of his conversations, it appears that he often explicitly declared that, if powerful measures were not adopted to prevent it, a revolution in France would take place, both in church and state. He thought irreligion, and a general corruption of manners, gained ground everywhere. On the decay of piety in France, he once mentioned in confidence to the editor a circumstance so shocking, that even after what has publicly happened, the editor does not think himself justifiable in mentioning it in this place. He seems to have augured well on the change of ministry which took place on the expulsion of the Choiseuls. He was particularly acquainted with the cardinal de Bernis, and the mareschal de Muy. Of the latter he writes thus in one of his letters. "Mr. de Muy, who has sometimes called upon me, and often writes to me, as the most affectionate of friends, is unanimously called the most virtuous and upright nobleman in the kingdom. The late dauphin's projects in favor of religion he will endeavor to execute. He is minister of war. The most heroic piety will be promoted by him by every method: if I gave you an account of his life, you would be charmed by so bright a virtue."
XV.
Our author had projected many works besides those which we have mentioned. Among them his Treatise on the Moveable Feasts may be reckoned. He very much lamented that he had not time to complete: what he had prepared of it, he thought too prolix, and, if he had lived to revise it, he would have made great alterations in it. Some time after his decease, it was published under the inspection of Mr. Challoner. He proposed writing the lives of bishop Fisher and sir Thomas {039} More, and had made great collections, with a view to such a work: some of them are in the hands of the editor, and are at the command of any person to whom they can be of use. He had begun a treatise to explain and establish the truths of natural and revealed religion; he was dissatisfied with what Bergier had published on those subjects. He composed many sermons, and an immense number of pious discourses. From what remained of the three last articles, the three volumes of his discourses, which have appeared since his decease, were collected. The editor is happy in this opportunity of mentioning his obligations to the Rev. Mr. Jones, for revising and superintending the publication of them. They are acknowledged to possess great merit; the morality of them is entitled to great praise; the discourse on conversation shows a considerable knowledge of life and manners. Having mentioned his sermons, it is proper to add, that as a preacher he almost wholly failed. His sermons were sometimes interesting and pathetic; but they were always desultory, and almost always immeasurably long. The editor has lately published his Short Life of Sir Toby Matthews.
He was very communicative of his manuscripts, and consequently many of them were lost; so that, on an attentive examination of them, after his decease, none but those we have mentioned were thought fit for the press.
XVI.
The number of letters written by our author exceeds belief; if they could be collected, they would be found to contain an immense mass of interesting matter on many important topics of religion and literature. He corresponded with many persons of distinction, both among the communicants with the see of Rome, and the separatists from her. Among the former may be reckoned the learned and elegant Lambertini, who afterwards, under the name of Benedict XIV., was honored with the papal crown: among the latter may be reckoned Dr. Louth, the bishop first of Oxford, afterwards of London, the celebrated translator of Isaiah. In a Latin note on Michaelis, our author speaks of that prelate as his intimate acquaintance, "necessitate conjunctissimus."
He had the happiness to enjoy the friendship and esteem of many persons distinguished by rank, talents, or virtue. The holy bishop of Amiens spoke of him in the highest terms of admiration and regard. In the life written in French of that excellent prelate, he is mentioned "as the most learned man in Europe." He is styled by father Brotier, in his preface to his edition of Tacitus, "sacrâ eruditione perceleber." The late Mr. Philips, in the preface to his life of cardinal Pole, mentioning the edition of his letters by cardinal Quirini, expresses himself thus: "They were procured for the author by Mr. Alban Butler, to whom the public is indebted for the most useful and valuable work which has appeared in the English language on the Lives of the Saints, and which has been so much esteemed in France, that it is now translating into the language of a country celebrated for biography, with large additions by the author. This gentleman's readiness on all occasions to assist the author in his undertaking, was answerable to his extensive knowledge and general acquaintance with whatever has any relation to erudition." Our author was not satisfied with the French translation of his work: the writers professed to translate it freely; but he thought that they abused the privilege of free translation, that they misrepresented his meaning, that their style was affected, and that the devotional cast which he had labored to give the original, was wholly lost in their translation. The editor has heard that a translation of it was begun in the Spanish and Italian languages, but he has seen no such translation. Dr. Kennicot spoke loudly of our author's readiness and disinterested zeal to oblige. Even the stern Mr. Hollis mentions him in his memoirs with some degree of kindness. No person was more warmly attached to his friends. With his affectionate and generous disposition, no one was more sensible of unkindness than he was; but none forgave it more readily. It was his rule to cultivate those who were inimical to him by every mark of attention and act of kindness; and rather to seek than avoid an intercourse with them. His incessant attention to his studies frequently made him absent in society: this sometimes produced whimsical incidents.
Whatever delight he found in his literary pursuits, he never sacrificed his religious duties to them, or permitted them to trespass on his exercises of devotion. Huet, whom, from his resemblance to our author in unremitted application to study, the editor has often had occasion to mention, laments his own contrary conduct in {040} very feeling terms: "I was entirely carried," says he, (De Rebus ad eum Pertinentibus, 174,) "by the pleasure found in learning: the endless variety which it affords had taken up my thoughts, and seized all the avenues of my mind, that I was altogether incapable of any sweet and intimate communication with God. When I withdrew into religious retirement, in order to recollect my scattered thoughts, and fix them on heavenly things, I experienced a dryness and insensibility of soul by which the Holy Spirit seemed to punish this excessive bent to learning." This misfortune our author never experienced. A considerable portion of his time was devoted to prayer. When it was in his power, he said mass every day; when he travelled, he rose at a very early hour, that he might hear it: he never neglected the prayer of the Angelus, and, when he was not in the company of strangers, he said it on his knees. He recommended a frequent approach to the sacrament of the altar: some, under his spiritual direction, communicated almost every day. The morale sevère of the Jansenists he strongly reprobated in discourse, and no person receded further from it in practice: but he was an admirer of the style of the gentlemen of Port Royal, and spoke with praise of their general practice of avoiding the insertion of the pronoun I in their writings. He thought the Bible should not be read by very young persons, or by those who were wholly uninformed: even the translation of the whole divine office of the church he thought should not be given to the faithful promiscuously. In the printed correspondence of Fenelon, a long letter by him on frequent communion, and one on reading the Bible, (they deserve to be translated and generally read,) express exactly our author's sentiments on those subjects. All singularity in devotion was offensive to him. He exhorted every one to a perfect discharge of the ordinary duties of his situation, to a conformity to the divine will, both in great and little occasions, to good temper and mildness in his intercourse with his neighbor, to an habitual recollection of the divine presence, to a scrupulous attachment to truth, to retirement, to extreme sobriety. These, he used to say, were the virtues of the primitive Christians, and among them, he said, we should always look for perfect models of Christian virtue. Fleury's account of them, in his Manners of the Christians, he thought excellent, and frequently recommended the perusal of it. He exhorted all to devotion to the Mother of God; many, under his care, said her office every day. The advantage of mental prayer he warmly inculcated. In the conduct of souls he was all mildness and patience: motives of love were oftener in his mouth than motives of fear: "for to him that loves, nothing," he used to say, with the author of the Imitation of Christ, "is difficult." He often sacrificed his studies and private devotions to the wants of his neighbor. When it was in his power he attended the ceremony of the salut at the parish church; and on festivals particularly solemnized by any community of the towns in which he resided, he usually assisted at the divine service in their churches. He was very abstemious in his diet; and considered systematic sensuality as the ultimate degradation of human nature. He never was heard to express so much disgust, as at conversations where, for a great length of time, the pleasures of the table, or the comparative excellence of dishes, had been the sole topic of conversation; yet he was very far from being an enemy to rational mirth, and he always exerted himself to entertain and promote the pleasures of his friends. In all his proceedings he was most open and unreserved: from selfishness none could be more free. Dr. Kennicot often said that, of the many he had employed in his great biblical undertaking, none had shown more activity or more disinterestedness than our author. He was zealous in the cause of religion, but his zeal was without bitterness or animosity: polemic acrimony was unknown to him. He never forgot that in every heretic he saw a brother Christian; in every infidel he saw a brother man. He greatly admired Drouen de Sacramentis, and Boranga's Theology. Tournely he preferred much to his antagonist Billouart. He thought Houbigant too bold a critic, and objected some novelties to the Hebraizing friars of the Rue St. Honoré. He believed the letters of Ganganelli, with the exception of two or three at most, to be spurious. Their spuriousness has been since placed beyond controversy by the Diatribe Clementine, polished in 1777. Caraccioli, the editor of them, in his Remerciement à l'Auteur de l'Année Littéraire de la part de l'Editeur des Lettres du Pape Ganganelli, acknowledges that he filled sixty pages at least of them with thoughts and insertions of his own compositions. In the handwriting of a gentleman, remarkable for his great accuracy, the editor has before him the following {041} account of our author's sentiments on usury: "Mr. Alban Butler's opinion of receiving interest for money, in a letter dated the 20th of June, 1735, but copied anno 1738.—In England, and in some other countries, the laws allow of five per cent., and even an action at law for the payment of it. This is often allowable in a trading country; and, as it is the common practice in England, I shall not blame any one for taking or even exacting interest-money; therefore will say nothing against it in general: but, in my own regard, I am persuaded it is not warrantable in conscience, but in three cases; viz. either for a gain ceasing, as merchants lend money which they would otherwise employ in trade, lucrum cessans: or, secondly, some detriment the lender suffers by it, damnum emergens: or, thirdly, some hazard in the principal money, by its being exposed to some more than ordinary danger in being recovered safely. Some time afterwards the said Alban Butler was convinced there was no occasion of scruple in receiving interest for money, so that it was at a moderate or low rate of interest; and that there was reason to believe the borrower made full the advantage of the money that he paid for it by the interest."