[TO THE EDITOR OF THE"SPECTATOR " ] SIR, —The letter of your
Catholic correspondent on " Janus" is probably a fair specimen of the kind of ' refutation ' it is likely to receive at Catholic hands. If so, its credit will remain un- shaken. Your correspondent does not venture to deny the facts stated by Janus as to the confusion caused by the conduct of the Pops in the eighth and ninth centuries, in their rejection of one another's ordinations. But he thinks that Auxentius has been misrepresented as holding an opinion against which in fact he vehemently protested. I have not Mabillon's Analecta at hand, but am ready to assume that your correspondent's extract is cor- rectly given. And then, what it shows is that the opinion of Auxentius was just as Janus reports it on the consequences of a state of things which, apparently on that very ground, he will not admit, but which results beyond dispute from other evidence. (See Baronius, Ann. Eccles, torn. x., p. 625.) Such cavils will not convince anyone that the work is not the fruit of a very " serious historical investigation."
The Tablet, it seems, thinks it a very strong argument against the book, that England is supposed (I should be glad, if truly) to have had some share in it.—I am, Sir, &c.,
A PROTESTANT READER OF THE " SPECTATOR."
[We publish our correspondent's letter as it is written ; but has he not written Auxentius by mistake for Auxilius ? The question raised, we take it, was less one of fact than one of animus in the authorship of "Janus,"—not whether Janus is right, but whether he is warranted in quoting Auxilius in this particular connection to prove he was right, without giving candidly Auxilius's own view of the matter.—ED. Spectator.]
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