With respect to Rome and her machinations, much valuable information can be obtained from particular parts of Lavengro and its sequel. Shortly before the time when the hero of the book is launched into the world the Popish agitation in England had commenced. The Popish propaganda had determined to make a grand attempt on England; Popish priests were scattered over the land, doing the best they could to make converts to the old superstition. With the plans of Rome, and her hopes, and the reasons on which those hopes are grounded, the hero of the book becomes acquainted during an expedition which he makes into the country, from certain conversations which he holds with a priest in a dingle in which the hero had taken up his residence; he likewise learns from the same person much of the secret history of the Roman See and many matters connected with the origin and progress of the Popish superstition. The individual with whom he holds these conversations is a learned, intelligent, but highly unprincipled person, of a character, however, very common amongst the priests of Rome, who in general are people void of all religion, and who, notwithstanding they are tied to Rome by a band which they have neither the power nor wish to break, turn her and her practices, over their cups with their confidential associates, to a ridicule only exceeded by that to which they turn those who become the dupes of their mistress and themselves. It is now necessary that the writer should say something with respect to himself and his motives for waging war against Rome. First of all, with respect to himself, he wishes to state that, to the very last moment of his life, he will do and say all that in his power may be to hold up to contempt and execration the priestcraft and practices of Rome; there is, perhaps, no person better acquainted than himself, not even among the choicest spirits of the priesthood, with the origin and history of Popery. From what he saw and heard of Popery in England at a very early period of his life, his curiosity was aroused, and he spared himself no trouble, either by travel or study, to make himself well acquainted with it in all its phases, the result being a hatred of it which he hopes and trusts he shall retain till the moment when his spirit quits the body. Popery is the great lie of the world--a source from which more misery and social degradation have flowed upon the human race than from all the other sources from which those evils come. It is the oldest of all superstitions, and, though in Europe it assumes the name of Christianity, it existed and flourished amidst the Himalayan hills at least two thousand years before the real Christ was born in Bethlehem of Judea--in a word, it is Buddhism, and let those who may be disposed to doubt this assertion compare the Popery of Rome and the superstitious practices of its followers with the doings of the priests who surround the grand Lama,