BLACKWOOD'S EDINBURGH MAGAZINE. NO. CCCCXXIV. FEBRUARY, 1851. VOL. LXIX. CONTENTS. LATIMER AND RIDLEY, 131 MY NOVEL; OR, VARIETIES IN ENGLISH LIFE. PART VI., 137 ADDITIONAL CHAPTERS FROM THE HISTORY OF JOHN BULL, 164 HARRY BOLTON'S CURACY, 180 THE DANGERS OF THE COUNTRY, 196 CURRAN AND HIS CONTEMPORARIES, 222 LORD HOLLAND'S FOREIGN REMINISCENCES, 234 POPERY IN THE NINETEENTH CENTURY, 246 EDINBURGH: WILLIAM BLACKWOOD & SONS, 45 GEORGE STREET; AND 37 PATERNOSTER ROW, LONDON. _To whom all communications (post paid) must be addressed._ SOLD BY ALL THE BOOKSELLERS IN THE UNITED KINGDOM. PRINTED BY WILLIAM BLACKWOOD AND SONS, EDINBURGH. BLACKWOOD'S EDINBURGH MAGAZINE. NO. CCCCXXIV. FEBRUARY, 1851. VOL. LXIX. LATIMER AND RIDLEY BURNED AT THE STAKE IN OXFORD, A.D. 1555. [The fires of Smithfield and the massacre of Bartholomew are truly events of little consequence in history, if they fail to convince us of the aggressive and unscrupulous policy of the Roman Catholic Church. The claim of the Pope, which never has undergone or can undergo any modification whatever, is nothing less than one of universal supremacy. That claim is asserted now as broadly and boldly as it was three hundred years ago; when, at the accession of Mary, Cardinal Pole was sent over as legate to England, for the reduction of that realm to the obedience of the See of Rome, and for the extirpation of heresy. It matters not what may have been the private character of the Cardinal. He has been represented as a man of mild nature, humane disposition, and averse to the infamous cruelties which were then perpetrated, the odium of which has been commonly thrown upon Bishops Gardiner and Bonner. This much at least is plain, that, whatever may have been his opinion as to the methods which were employed for the suppression of Protestantism, he did not deem it expedient to exercise his great power in mitigating the fury or tempering the cruelty of the persecution. He was a passive witness of the enormities, and allowed the mandates of the Church to supersede the dictates of humanity and the merciful teaching of the Saviour.