n search of bigotry seek for it in a
church very different from the inoffensive Church of England, which never
encourages cruelty or calumny. Let them seek for it amongst the members
of the Church of Rome, and more especially amongst those who have
renegaded to it. There is nothing, however false and horrible, which a
pervert to Rome will not say for his church, and which his priests will
not encourage him in saying; and there is nothing, however horrible--the
more horrible indeed and revolting to human nature, the more eager he
would be to do it--which he will not do for it, and which his priests
will not encourage him in doing.

Of the readiness which converts to Popery exhibit to sacrifice all the
ties of blood and affection on the shrine of their newly-adopted religion
there is a curious illustration in the work of Luigi Pulci. This man,
who was born at Florence in the year 1432, and who was deeply versed in
the Bible, composed a poem, called the "Morgante Maggiore," which he
recited at the table of Lorenzo de Medici, the great patron of Italian
genius. It is a mock-heroic and religious poem, in which the legends of
knight-errantry, and of the Popish Church, are turned to unbounded
ridicule. The pretended hero of it is a converted giant, called
Morgante; though his adventures do not occupy the twentieth part of the
poem, the principal personages being Charlemagne, Orlando, and his cousin
Rinaldo of Montalban. Morgante has two brothers, both of them giants,
and, in the first canto of the poem, Morgante is represented with his
brothers as carrying on a feud with the abbot and monks of a certain
convent, built upon the confines of heathenesse; the giants being in the
habit of flinging down stones, or rather huge rocks, on the convent.
Orlando, however, who is banished from the court of Charlemagne, arriving
at the convent, undertakes to destroy them, and accordingly kills
Passamonte and Alabastro, and converts Morgante, whose mind has been
previously softened by a vision, in which the "Blessed Virgin" figures.
No sooner is he converted than, as a sign of his penitence, what does he
do, but hastens and cuts off the hands of his two brothers, saying--

"Io vo' tagliar le mani a tutti quanti
E porterolle a que' monaci santi."

And he does cut off the hands of his brethren, and carries them to the
abbot, who blesses him for so doing. Pulci here is holding up to
ridicule and execration the horrid butchery or