I hope to see all the Protestants fry in theire own grease beefore Michaelmas next

At that time [the beginning of the reign of James II] a limner was imployed to beautyfy the Parish church at Ellesmeare. This Clarke went to see his worke, and said, 'You doe well to leave the Church in good repaire for us; for you had it from us in good order.
The limner (knowing him to be a Papist) said, 'What, doe you think the Papists must have the Church?' '
Yes, I doe' says Clarke.
Then sayes the limner, 'What doe you think shall become of us Protestants?'
Then Clarke answeared, 'I hope to see all the Protestants fry in theire own grease beefore Michaelmas next.'

R. Gough, The history of Myddle (1700), ed. D. Hey (1981), 173-4

Anglo-catholicism, reaction and whimsy

I discussed over the weekend whether this was a quotation book for conversation. I think it is, though the bon mots would have be exceptionally bon. However, it is certainly a place for excellently written bloggage, of which the following is an exemplar. It's from my favourite blog at the moment, which I would urge you all to read. Anyway, I can't decide which of these two bits is best, so I'll have both:

'We advertise our letters as containing Anglo-catholicism, reaction and whimsy; but like all Church of England publications we actually cover mostly the gays, internal church politics, and nostalgia for an impossibly golden age. For most Anglicans this utopia is the 1950s: for us, true to form, the 1670s. Or possibly the 1630s. Certainly not the 1650s, though.

... 

We encourage you to speak again more of kings than of queens; to become once again the Tory party at prayer. The seventeenth-century Tory party at prayer, of course. Not today's soi-disant version.'

S.Fisher, Posing as a Jacobite, retrieved 22 May 2013 from http://plumsteadletters.blogspot.co.uk/

<http://plumsteadletters.blogspot.co.uk/2013/05/posing-as-jacobite.html>

He could not withstand the last enchantment of the Middle Age

If Newman had never lived, or if his father when the gig came round on the fatal morning, still undecided between the two Universities, had chanced to turn the horse's head in the direction of Cambridge, who can doubt that the Oxford Movement would have flickered out its little flame unobserved in the Common Room of Oriel. And how different, too, would have been the fate of Newman himself! ... At Oxford, he was doomed. He could not withstand the last enchantment of the Middle Age.It was in vain that he plunged into the pages of Gibbon or communed for long hours with Beethoven over his beloved violin. The air was thick with clerical sanctity, heavy with the odours of tradition and the soft warmth of spiritual authority.

[There's actually lots more of this. I'd urge you to read it]

L. Strachey, Eminent Victorians (1918), 23

Votaries initiated in the orgies of Dionysus ran about in goat-skins, mangling hounds in Bacchic frenzy

Accordingly during the whole period of his [Valens'] reign the altar fire was lit, libations and sacrifices were offered to idols, public feasts were celebrated in the forum, and votaries initiated in the orgies of Dionysus ran about in goat-skins, mangling hounds in Bacchic frenzy, and generally behaving in such a way as to show the iniquity of their master. When the right faithful Theodosius found all these evils he pulled them up by the roots, and consigned them to oblivion.

Theodoret of Cyrrhus, Ecclesiastical History V.21.4-5, tr. NPNF

The people of Montaillou were not yet afraid of either sex or idleness

The actual morality of the domus of Montaillou was very different from that created later by Protestant and Catholic, Puritan and Jansenist reformations, both kinds intolerant of sex and anxious to make people work. Whether they were Catholic or Cathars or in between, the people of Montaillou were not yet afraid of either sex or idleness.

E. La Roy Ladurie, Montaillou, tr. B. Bray (1978), 331

A Second Awakening was driven by the evangelical energy of the frontier

Now, in the first half of the nineteenth century, a Second Awakening was driven by the evangelical energy of the frontier. In 1776, some 10 per cent of Americans were church-goers; by 1815, it was a quarter; by 1914, it was half.

S. Sebag-Montefiore, Jerusalem (2011), 337