_Pope Ganganelli_ (Vol. ii., p. 464.).--In reply to the inquiry of CEPHAS,
I give you the following anecdote, in the words of the Rev. Dr. Kirk, of
Lichfield, who still survives (and long may he yet survive!) to bear
testimony to its correctness:--
"Charles Plowden travelled with Mr. Middleton; and when at Rome, he
called with Mr. Thorpe to see me at the English college. We walked
together for some time in St. George's Hall, and he quite scandalised
me with the manner in which he spoke of Ganganelli. There is no doubt
that Mr. Plowden had a principal hand in the _Life of Ganganelli_,
which was published in London in 1785. Father Thorpe supplied the
materials (J.T. is subscribed to the letters printed), and Mr. Plowden
arranged them. I brought a packet of letters from Mr. Thorpe to Mr. C.
Plowden, and one or two other packets were brought from him to Mr.
Plowden by other students. 'The contents were so scandalous,' said
Bishop Milner in my hearing, at Oscott, 'that Mr. Weld, with whom Mr.
C. Plowden lived, insisted on the work being suppressed.' The copies
were all bought up, and I have never seen or heard of a copy since I
saw it in Coghlan's shop in 1785. Mr. Cordell, of Newcastle, wrote some
observations upon it. Mr. Conolly, S.J., told me at Oxford, October 17,
1814, that he 'once saw in a corner of Mr. C. Plowden's room, a heap of
papers, some torn, and put there apparently to be burnt. I took up one
of them,' he said, 'which was torn in two.' It contained anecdotes and
observations _against Ganganelli_."
It was doubtless from this collection that Mr. Keon was supplied with those
papers, which he published in _Dolman's Magazine_ in 1846, concerning "The
Preservation of the Society of Jesus in the Empire of Russia."