day with the prebendaries and priests about wearing the cope, crosier, and mitre in procession, it were too much to write”. On Thursday, the 31st of August, the clergy and people of that Catholic city assembled to proclaim their faith: as yet no statute or proclamation had been made, but they could not brook any longer delay: “They rang all the bells in that cathedral, minster, and parish churches”, (writes Bale), “they flung up their caps to the battlements of the great temple; they brought forth their copes, candlesticks, holy water stocks, crosses, and censers; they mustered forth in general procession most gorgeously all the town over, with _Sancta Maria, ora pro nobis_, and the rest of the Latin litany”. Even here, however, the trials of Dr. Bale were not terminated. A party of the citizens, having at their head an individual named _Barnaby Bolger_, surrounded his house, threatening him with death, unless he ceased to defile by his presence their Catholic county. It was only by the interposition of the mayor with four hundred soldiers, that the commotion was partially quelled; at night Bale made his escape to Dublin. Instead of protection, he found that new dangers awaited him in that capital of our island; in the disguise of a sailor he was again obliged to seek safety by flight; sailing for Zealand, as _Harris_ tells us, he was taken prisoner at sea, and tried for treason in Cornwall; escaping thence he sailed for the Continent, but was once more seized by pirates, and sold as a slave;[14] having paid his ransom, he lived during the following years at Basle and Geneva. On the accession of Elizabeth he returned to England, but never sought to be restored to the See of Ossory. The writings of Bale acquired some celebrity on the continent, where they were nearly all composed. They are full, however, of the vilest calumnies against the religious orders and the Holy See, and are written with characteristic acrimony of style. Hence Fuller, in his _Catalogue of English Writers_, says: “Bale knew not how to moderate his passions, and hence deservedly received the agnomen _Biliosus Balaeus_”. Montacutus also (in _Apparat._, § 83) styles him, “impotentis linguae et calami scriptor”. Pitseus is still more severe, for he thus epitomizes Bale’s character, “omnia foedissimus scurra mendaciis et calumniis replevit”. Andrew Valery, in his preface to the _Bibliotheca Belgica_, writes, “Joannes Balaeus homo impius quidem, nominari tamen hoc loco vel ideo potuit ut quis e sordibus gemmas legat”; and in fine, Gerrard Vossius condemns his bad faith in treating of the early writers, “unum scio in priorum saeculorum scriptoribus non raro Balaei fidem claudicare” (_De Historicis Latinis_, lib. i. cap. 32, pag. 170). Such was the character of this boasted champion of the established church in our island! But it is time to return to the successors of saint Canice.