borders, lest the sincere part of the flock be drawn away after them*.

II. These early interminglings and associations prepared the way for the final geographical and ecclesiastical amalgamation, of the joint French Valdenses and Albigenses of Languedoc, with the primeval Vallenses of Piedmont and Dauphiny on either side of the Cottian Alps.

1. A large body of the French Valdenses, harassed by incessant persecution, emigrated about the middle of the fourteenth century: and took up their abode with their brethren, the Vallenses of the Cottian Alps, in the Valleys of Piedmont and Dauphiny, which, eastward and westward, stretch into the dioceses of Turin and Embrun.

Here the great body of them settled: but, still preserving their missionary character as the Poor Men of Lyons, they shot forth, as the Inquisitor expresses it, their sad branches into Liguria and Italy and beyond them into Apulia †.

* Innoc. III. Epist. Decretal. lib. i. p. 56, 57. apud Usser. de Eccles. Success. c. ix. § 7.

Ut vobis, reverendissimo in Christo patri et domino, domino Rostagno Ebredunensi Archiepiscopo; vobisque, reverendis patribus et dominis, Fratri Laurentio Cistaricensi Episcopo, et Thomæ Paschalis Orlianensi Officiali, Commissariis Apostolicis, Regia et Dalphinali auctoritate suffultis, ad causam eorum Pauperum de Lugduno, quos vulgus Valdenses appellat, dictos a Valdeo cive Lugdunensi, in loco dicto vulgariter Val grant moram faciente.

It is worthy of note: that the language of this Inquisitor exhibits, what might seem at first a contradiction, but what is readily explained from the general and extended view of the old Vallenses which we have now obtained.

In the instrument, which was drawn up shortly after the year 1489, he mentions, on the evidence of the examined themselves: that they had been settled in the Valleys, for at least a century, and

Qui homo dives hæresiarcha primus hæresis sectæ Valdensium inventor fuit, secundum Scripturam bonis temporalibus renuncians, cœpit, cum suis complicibus, vitam apostolicam cum cruce et paupertate ducere. Et, experrectis viris ecclesiasticis, multos sibi discipulos sociavit, qui inde dicti sunt Pauperes de Lugduno.

Qui, dicentes vivere sub obedientia apostolica, ab illa tamen se separantes, pertinaciter respondebant cum redarguerentur, Magis esse Deo obediendum quam hominibus.

Fuerunt tandem, et merito, per militantem Ecclesiam damnati, sed non radicitus extirpati. Quia, Lugduno fugientes ad ultimas Dalphinatus partes, se transferentes in Ebredunensi et Taurinensi dioecesibus in Alpibus et intra concava montium accessu difficilia, plures ibi ex illis habitaverunt: ubi, paulatim procurante satore zizaniæ, in copioso numero excreverunt: et demum palmites suos tristes in Liguriam, Italiam, et ultra Romam in Apuliam, transmiserunt. Script. Inquis. cujusp. anon. de Valdens. apud Allix on the Church of Piedm. p.

324.

It is observable, that here also the original connection of Peter Valdo with the Valleys of the Cottian Alps is duly mentioned. He is said to have once lived in the region commonly called Val grant or (I suppose) The Great Valley.

likewise through a succession of ages so long as to be beyond the memory of man *.

These two depositions seem, at first, to be scarcely compatible: yet they are easily reconciled.

The century of inhabitation respects the French Valdenses or the Poor Men of Lyons: who, at the beginning of the instrument, are said to have been driven from France into the Valleys by stress of persecution.

The time beyond the memory of man respects the native aboriginal Vallenses: who had been settled in the range of the Cottian Alps from the very days of primitive Christianity.

After this, the instrument goes on to state their doctrinal system.

That system, I need only add, is precisely the same, as the system which was ever held by the Vallenses t.

Hence it serves to corroborate the evidence

* Imprimis ponit et dicit, ac probare intendit: quod ipsi homines vallis Frayxineriæ fuerunt, a centum annis citra ultra.

Cujus siquidem damnatissimæ hæresis cultores, quibus viri et mulieres vallis Clusionis Taurinensis dioecesis, et omnes mares et fœminæ vallis Frayxineriæ, ac plures vallium Argenteriæ et Loysiæ Ebredunensis diœcesis, a tanto tempore quod non est memoria hominum, in contrarium fuerunt proni. Script. Inquis. anon. apud Allix on the Church of Piedm. p. 325.

† Script. Inquis. anon. apud Allix on the Church of Piedm. p. 326-329. The whole document is extremely curious, but too long for insertion.

already adduced, in regard to the nature of their religious tenets at and shortly after the Reformation of the sixteenth century.

2. With respect to the much enduring Albigenses, it is no part of my plan to write their history. For my own object, it will be sufficient to state the regions whither the poor remnant of them fled from the exterminating sword of the detestable Simon de Montfort and from the racks and fires of the still more detestable Popish Inquisitors in the course of the thirteenth century *.

* For an account of these papal horrors during the whole course of the protracted crusade, or rather succession of crusades, the reader may consult Perrin's Histoire des Albigeois and (as a more modern Work) Sismondi's History of the Crusades against the Albigenses. This last work has very seasonably been translated into English and forms one thin volume 8vo. Wightman and Cramp. London. 1826.

The singular merit of the blessed Dominic, who (as Trivett speaks) wielded the spiritual sword while his friend Simon managed the secular, procured for him an equally singular reception into heaven.

Transitus autem ejus, Fratri Gualæ Priori Brixiæ, qui postea fuit ejusdem civitatis Episcopus, revelatus est per hujusmodi visionem. Eadem namque hora qua beatissimi Patris anima migravit a corpore, sicut postea compertum est, vidit aperturam in cœlo, per quam dimittebantur candidæ scalæ duæ : quarum unius summitatem tenebat Christus Dominus; alterius, mater ejus angeli autem lucis discurrebant, adscendentes per eas. Et, ecce, inter utramque scalam, sedes posita est in imo; et, supra sedem, sedens: et, qui sedebat, similis erat Fratri habenti faciem velatam capucio, quemadmodum in Ordine moris est

For this purpose, I shall avail myself of the testimony afforded by the historian Thuanus.

When exquisite punishments were of no avail against them; when the evil seemed to be only embittered by the remedy, which had been unseasonably applied; and when their number daily increased : regular armies were at length enrolled; and a war of no less magnitude, than that which had previously been carried on in opposition to the Saracens, was

Fratres mortuos sepelire. Trahentibus autem scalas illas Christo Jesu et matre, trahebatur et sedes pariter cum sedente: donec, psallentibus angelis, cœlo illatus est. Receptis igitur in cœlum scalis, et sede cum eo qui in sede fuerat collocatus, cœli apertura clausa est. Nicol. Trivett. Chronic. in A.D. 1221.

The Brother, whom the Prior thus beheld translated, was of course holy Dominic. What became of Simon, cui admodum familiaris erat beatus Dominicus propter communem zelum adversus hæreticorum perfidiam, Trivett does not inform us. Ibid. in A.D. 1209. Dominic's canonisation followed in regular order and the miraculous fragrancy, which issued from his opened sepulchre, afforded an ample warrant for the celestial nobility conferred upon him by the patent of Pope Gregory IX. See Nicol. Trivett. Chron. in A.D. 1233. Hence, with much reason, Ricchini, who wrote in the year 1743, lauds both the saint and his spiritual offspring the Inquisition: while he justly thinks foul scorn of our Dr. Cave, for vilipending the one, and for making Hell the true parent of the other. In these liberal days, a Protestant will doubtless be much refreshed in spirit by the decisive language of the learned Preaching Friar.

Jam vero, ne recrudesceret in posterum malum, aut impia hæresis repullularet ex cineribus suis, saluberrimo consilio, Romani Pontifices Sanctæ Inquisitionis Officium, auctore S. Dominico, institucrunt: eidemque beato viro et Fratribus Præ