Page:An Index of Prohibited Books (1840).djvu/205

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no dissatisfaction with the judgment of Professor Ranke. He is certainly mistaken in representing a particular passage as an extract from Paleotto; for the whole account of the concluding sessions of the Council have for their continued basis the Acts of Paleotto, which are a regular and continued history of the final assembly of the Council. The letters of the principal agents of the time form the other principal source. I am convinced, however, that this inadequate representation arose, not from any design, but from the hasty manner in which the author turned over the pages of the Memoirs. It is as well not to hazard a judgment on such examination; but in particular cases it may be excused. To the censure contained in the last sentence, I might reply, that the professor is a gentleman not easily to be pleased. He has treated my betters, Sarpi, Pallavicino, Raynaldus, Le Plat, with a hypercritical severity which might well render me contented under my own lash. But the censure is exceedingly indefinite; and I must say, that I feel no particular mortifica. tion in not coinciding in taste with Professor Leopold Ranke. If he had written his history after more experience, he would, I doubt not,