[We are inclined to think that Wiltshire must be a misprint for Worcestershire in the Review, as the notices of Miss Elstob in Kippis' Biographia Britannica, and Nichols' Anecdotes of Bowyer, only speak of her retirement in distressed circumstances to Evesham, where she attracted the notice of Mr. Ballard, author of Memoirs of British Ladies, and of Mrs. Capon, wife of the Rev. Mr. Capon, of Stanton, in Gloucestershire.]
Cardinal Bellarmin.
—I find the following passage in D'Israeli's Curiosities of Literature:—
"Bellarmin was made a Cardinal for his efforts and devotion to the Papal cause, and maintaining this monstrous paradox—that if the Pope forbid the exercise of virtue and command that of vice, the Roman Church, under pain of sin, was obliged to abandon virtue for vice, if it would not sin against conscience."
Can any of your readers favour me with the text in Bellarmin, which contains this "monstrous paradox?"
HENRY H. BREEN.
St. Lucia, May, 1851.
[The passage will be found in Disputationum Roberti Bellarmini, de Controversiis Christianæ Fidei: De Summo Pontifice, lib. iv. cap. v. sect. 8.: Pragæ, 1721, fol., vol. i. p. 456.:
"8. Secundò, quia tune necessariò erraret, etiam circa fidem. Nam fides Catholica docet, omnem virtutem esse bonam, omne vitium esse malum: si autem Papa erraret præcipiendo vitia, vel prohibendo virtutes, teneretur Ecclesia credere, vitia esse bona, et virtutes malas, nisi vellet contra conscientiam peccare. Tenetur enim in rebus dubiis Ecclesia acquiescere judicio summi Pontificis, et facere quod ille præcipit; non facere, quod ille prohibet; ac nè fortè contra conscientiam agat, tenetur credere bonum esse, quod ille præcipit: malum, quod ille prohibet.">[