for a writer that would speak historically or dogmatically, since the most cruel tyrants put some people to death justly.

Notwithstanding these panegyrics, Savonarola died like a good Roman Catholic. There is some foundation for doubting whether the title of martyr which has been bestowed upon him by some authors, justly belongs to him. I put this question to those who say that Savonarola was burnt for no other reason than because he had incurred the displeasure of the court of Rome. Have you read the acts of his trial? Did you find there that he was charged with no other crime but railing at the Pope, despising the excommunications of Rome, and preaching that the church wanted to be reformed? In that case I yield the point to you. But as you cannot have read them without finding that among several other shameful confessions which were drawn from him, he acknowledges that his predictions were only grounded upon the consequences which he had deduced from scripture, it is impossible for you to justify yourselves, your report is very unfaithful.

In effect, this acknowledgment of Savonarola convicted him of an imposture that was full of profanation and impiety, since he had said for some years, that his knowledge of things to come, proceeded from an immediate and prophetical inspiration. This, no doubt, was the principal reason which the judges alleged for sentencing him to be burnt. If you answer that this was not the true reason of Savonarola's punishment, it was only the pretence, I ask you is a man allowed upon certain facts, to give his conjectures and interpretations, which are charitable with respect to the party accused, and malicious with respect to the judges? And after all, this does not justify the persons whose narratives he examines, for they say not a word concerning the motives which the judges alleged. They decide the point without

setting forth the tenor of the acts. Does not this show a conduct full of temerity and passion?

This does not concern those who acknowledge that the records of the trial charge several great crimes upon Savonarola, but who pretend that foul play was used in drawing up these records, and that there appeared falsified copies of them. I will neither doubt of this, nor of the passion which may possibly have prevailed in the minds of the judges; I shall only warn those who so positively affirm that the sole cause of Savonarola's death was his having railed at the Pope; that Guicciardini, who is rather his apologist than his historian, owns that the party accused renounced the title of a prophet. He was therefore convicted of imposture in point of prophecy, by his own confession. I cannot tell whether the judges knew of the letters which Savonarola wrote to Charles VIII, exhorting him to return into Italy, and to reform the church by the sword. They would have found there a just cause to condemn him for treason, for it is an act of rebellion to call in foreign armies; the heads of a faction cannot lawfully use such means to render it the uppermost in their country. On the other hand, it was a strange if not a mad project, to think of making the sword of a king of France the instrument of reforming the church. Did he want him to employ dragooning, or was it only his desire that he should oblige the court of Rome by the terror of his arms, to call a council? But what freedom could there be in an assembly held by the will of a conqueror? Would people dare to give their opinions otherwise than as he should think fit?

Let us observe, that if this Dominican were not an impostor, he must necessarily have been a prodigious fanatic. I prove it thus: he foretold among other things, the approaching conversion of the Mahometans, and showed himself to be so fully persuaded of the certainty of this prophecy, that he declared that

whoever should enter into the fire for the support of it, would come off without receiving any damage. If he spoke sincerely, his persuasion was as strong as it could possibly be. Now, since the falsity of the prediction makes it plainly appear that he was not inspired, we ought to conclude that his fanaticism was come to the highest pitch. Every body, I think, must know that the virtue of a fanatic, his zeal, his mortifications are not words of a double meaning. It is generally a virtue proceeding from vapours, an irregularity of the organs, a disorder in some fibres of the brain. I am willing to believe that those who have so much cried up the martyrdom of Savonarola, had never read the facts which I have mentioned in this remark, nor made the reflections which naturally arise from them. I must do this justice to Voëtius, that although he has disputed the ground by inches in favour of the Dominican, he does not fail to acknowledge that he had somewhat of a vertigo. He does not make him a true prophet of the new law as others have done. Savonarola wrote a great many books wherein we find a great deal of unction and piety. This is Mr Du Pin's judgment upon them: "He has composed," says he, "a prodigious number of books, moral, spiritual, and practical; they abound in the unction and maxims of piety; he there freely censures vice, and teaches the purest and the most sublime morality." Mr Du Pin has given us the catalogue of this friar's works, we find it also in the appendix to Dr Cave, with a great many particulars concerning the different editions. Some of them were put in the "Index Librorum prohibitorum et expurgandorum," and there arose a great dispute under pope Paul IV, whether or not they should all be treated in the same manner; but by the extraordinary vigilance of the Dominicans it was carried in the negative, and it was resolved to stand to what had already been decreed against some of them, and

that even these should not be branded as heretical or erroneous: the penalty of suspension was thought sufficient. Of all the many books written by Savonarola, none has been more universally approved of than that which is entitled "Triumphus Crucis, seu de Fidei Christianæ veritate-The Triumph of the Cross, or of the Truth of Christianity." Cardinal Onuphrius who died at Rome in the year 1646, ordered by a codicil annexed to his last will, that they should cause it to be reprinted in good characters, with the Paraphrase of the same author upon the Miserere, and left five hundred crowns for that purpose. Let us observe that Savonarola's book against Judicial Astrology, was printed in Italian at Florence, in the year 1495, and that it was translated into Latin, and illustrated with notes by Thomas Boninsignius; the same book was translated into High Dutch, by Thomas Erastus. It is said that Savonarola encouraged John Picus to write against Judicial Astrology: the reason that is given for his hatred to astrologers, appears to me very chimerical; however I shall recite it, as it will serve to show the credulity of Florimond de Remond. "The excessive vanity of Savonarola, who pretended to be a prophet, was presently found out by the very astrologers; for as there was a conjunction of Venus and Saturn, and the moon was in the meridian of her hemisphere on the twenty-first of September, 1452, at forty-four minutes past five in the afternoon, they immediately saw the pride and arrogance of that monk. For this reason he was such a bitter enemy to astrology, having armed Picus Mirandolanus against it."

In a letter which Savonarola wrote to the Pope, wherein he examines among other things laid to his charge, the accusation of his boasting that he conversed with God, he answers that he never spoke so in express words; but that supposing he had even made use of that expression, he should not deserve

to be punished, since there is no law for punishing those who say that they converse with God. He adds that such a law would be absurd and impious, since no man can impose a law upon God, who may converse with whom he pleases. His answers to the greatest part of the other accusations, go almost upon the same foundation. He denies, for example, that he had boasted of being a prophet; but he maintains that if he had done so, he should not be liable to punishment. He does not acknowledge that he said absolutely and with a design to make himself equal to God, "If I am a liar, Jesus Christ is, so." He confines himself to certain particular cases, wherein he pretends that he might lawfully use that expression. He has recourse to a distinction of the like nature, when he tries to justify himself for having said, that such as did not give credit to his predictions were out of the way of salvation. "I only meant that," says he, "of such people as opposed me through a spirit of obstinacy." He was no bad proficient in the art of sophistry, that art which is so necessary to those who deal in predictions.

He had also great conflicts with the devils, and rendered himself formidable to these princes of darkness. I must not forget that one of the things which served to make him odious, was his affection for the king of France. There is room to believe that he was attached to that prince, because having presumed to prophecy that great revolutions would happen, and turning his eyes on all sides to seek out the Cyrus destined by God to fulfil that great work, he found none so fit for that purpose as Charles VIII. From that moment he declared him to be the chosen Cyrus of God, and dedicated all his services to him. It is the common practice of these false prophets, and we have examples of it which are of a fresher date still than that of Drabicius. I do not know whether Savonarola had not attended to a maxim