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111 ever, of reserved cases fbr absolution, not simply in the papal territory, but generally m ail nations pro- fessing llie papal religion, is too notorious to admit a moment^ s doubt. They form an ordinary portion of synodical provisions in Hoinan catholic countries ; and the specification of the crimes expressed is usually, but varyingly, cliaracterizL J by that vile and vitiating particularity, if not absolute invention, which jSxes upon pope ry the stigma, not only of in- difference, but even complacence, in respect of sen- sual sin, and mark it out for disgust and rejection. In the Synodal Constitutions of the Bishop of Fras- cati, our Cardinal Duke of York, at a Synod there held by him in 1763, and published at Batae with all authority in 1764, there is a passage under the head of Beserved Cases, which has been brought into notice by De Potter, in his of Bicci^ which i'or ingenious turpitude of invention, almost exceeds belief. And yet this woA is hardly more outrageous than another little one, which I possess on the very same subject, and of no earlier date than 1805. It is— Tractatus de Oasibus Reservatis in Nova Dicecesi Oandavensi, Jussu ac Auctoritate lUust et Bever. Dom. Episc. In lucem editus mdcccv. The latter half of the work, from p. 31 to 74, is occupied widi the description of every imaginable crime, without the unallest reserve in the expression; so tiiat the decorum which advancing civilization has silently, but irresistibly^ wrought in all otb^ communities,