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X. Personal Narrative of Travels in the United States and
Canada, in 1826, with Remarks on the present state of
the American Navy. By Lieut. the Hon. F. F. de
Roos

XI. Olgiati, Tragedia, di S. B. Testa

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558

566

XII. Personal Sketches of his own Times. By Sir Jonah Bar

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XIII. Papistry Storm'd; or, the Dingin down o' the Cathedral.

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XIV. The Citizen's Pocket Chronicle

XV. Sir J. Lawrence on the Nobility of the British Gentry

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XVI. The City of Refuge, a Poem. By Thomas Quin

593

XVII. Philosophy in Sport made Science in Earnest

594

XVIII. The late Dr. Heber's Charge to the Clergy of the Diocese of Calcutta

596

598

Literary and Miscellaneous Intelligence

Monthly List of New Publications, British and Foreign
INDEX to the Fifth Volume of the MONTHLY REVIEW.

601

THE

MONTHLY REVIEW.

AUGUST, 1827.

ART. I. A Summary of the Laws peculiarly affecting_Protestant Dissenters. By Jos. Beldam, of the Middle Temple, Esq. Barrister at Law. 12mo. pp. 196. 7s. London: J. Butterworth & Son. 1827. IT has been, and still is, very much the fashion in this country, to rail at the inquisition of Spain, and to hold up its founders and abettors as the most malignant enemies of freedom and the natural rights of the human mind that ever disgraced the earth. This is strong language of censure, and we are among those who think that it is not more severe than just; and that the inquisition was not more inimical to the improvement of our race than to the propagation of christianity. But we are also among those who feel, that there is no censure, no language of honest indignation, that can be uttered against the inquisitorial institutions of Spain, which may not with equal justice be applied to most of the laws relating to religion in our own country. The little volume before us contains comparatively but a few of those foul creations of wicked and selfish passion, of infuriated legislation, of men vying with each other in their alternate downfalls and victories, as if to see which party could excel the other in framing laws of the most ingenious, the most insulting, and the most comprehensive oppression, under the assumed and blasphemed name of the religion of the true God.

We blush for our ancestors and our country, when we look back upon this abominable code. Not to go farther back than the reign of Edward VI., we find that scarcely was the constitution of the state-church established, than all the subjects of this kingdom were commanded by law to attend its forms of worship, under the sanction of fines and imprisonment! These penalties were increased, as Mr. Beldam justly remarks, to a barbarous degree, by subsequent statutes in the reign of Elizabeth, explained and enlarged by a statute of James I.' Similar severities were adopted against those who persuaded others to absent themselves from divine worship, or impugn the ecclesiastical authority of the prince; on legal conviction of which offences, the punishment extended to abjuration

VOL. V. NO. XXIV.

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of the realm for life, and forfeiture of property! These enactments would seem sufficiently savage; but they are exceeded by the 1st of Elizabeth, c. 2, which by the way, only revived a similar act of her predecessor, subjecting any person who attended at forms of worship not authorised by law, to imprisonment for life, on being convicted of a third offence.

It is to the honour of the Commonwealth, that most of these atrocious statutes were repealed, at least, so far as they affected the Protestant Dissenters, during its existence; but as if to compensate the genius of evil for this short suspension of his tyranny, the offence just mentioned, was, on the restoration, made punishable in the first and second instance, by fine and imprisonment, and in the third, by transportation for seven years, and sequestration of goods to the sheriff for the payment of expenses incident to the execution of his duty! But this is not all. If the offender-the man who chose to worship his Creator according to the suggestions of his own conscience-if he had no goods, he might be sold by the sheriff, and sent out to work as a labourer in the colonies for five years! Hear this, ye Dawsons, ye Peels, ye Eldons! Talk ye of the Inquisition of Spain, of the edict of Nantz, with such anathemas against mental liberty on your statute books, as these rising in testimony against your plausible eulogies on the constitution of this country!

But these laws, it is said, have been long since all repealed, or at least, they have become obsolete in practice. This we admit, but we are ashamed to say, that in the laws relating to religion, which still remain in force, much of the old leaven is found circulating its sinister and depraving influence. Upon this ground, the Dissenters have good reason to complain. We are glad to see them at length roused, as one man, to claim their rights from the country; and we trust, that while a particle of the chain, once so enormous, clings to their hands, they will sound it in the ears of the civilised world, until even the traces of it shall be effectually healed.

Mr. Beldam has essentially promoted their object, by the publication of this summary. He has collected together in a small volume, all the laws now affecting Protestant Nonconformists, as such, and he has arranged them with skill, and in the form most commodious for reference. To petitioners, who think it as well to understand the nature of the laws against which they remonstrate; to churchmen, who desire to know what the security is which they think so essential to the support of their establishment; to legislators, who do not believe that their declamation will be the worse, for being combined with a slight knowledge of the subject about which it is to be exerted, such a book must be highly acceptable.

Mr. Beldam divides his work into four parts. The first comprises the laws affecting Protestant Dissenters in general—either by imposing civil disabilities upon them, by hindering the free

expression of their opinions, or by exacting oaths and declarations inconsistent with their opinions. This, which is the most important division of the volume, includes an explanation of the sacramental test, as a qualification for office, by virtue of the Corporation Act, or under the Crown-of the Bill of Indemnity-the Marriage Act-and the disqualifications at the university.

In treating of the last-mentioned subject, Mr. Beldam has been betrayed into a slight mistake, from imagining that the present discipline of the universities is in any degree regulated by these statutes. It is not true, as stated (p. 34),—that the sacrament must be taken as a qualification for an academical degree. In Cambridge-and we believe at Oxford, the performance of this rite is enforced only upon candidates for Holy Orders. Neither is there any ground for the assertion, that a subscription to the king's spiritual authority, to the perfection of the Common Prayer, and to the 39 Articles,' is necessary previous to the examination for an A. B. degree. A simple declaration of conformity to the church of England, which (by perhaps a rather lax interpretation), is considered only as an acknowledgment that the candidate is not a member of any body of Dissenters, is the only existing requirement of this nature. We need scarcely add, however, that this declaration acts with the same exclusive force against the Dissenters, as the sacramental test itself.

In speaking of the religious disqualifications of Dissenters, Mr. Beldam states it as his opinion, that Protestant Dissenters being under the protection of the Toleration Act-are, to the extent of their principles,' exempted from the penalties incident to those offences against religion, which are such by the common law-though he admits, at the same time, that the Toleration Act merely repealed certain penal statutes. As he produces no authority for this position, we must take leave to question its legality. No doubt, the judges may make what they please of these, or any other provisions of the common law-and from the temper they have of late displayedthere is, perhaps, as little doubt that they would interpret them, as far as possible, in favour of all tolerated sectaries. But why any of the legal disabilities appertaining to the crime of heresy-supposing that there was or could be any definition of that crimeshould fall less heavily upon the Dissenters, than upon any other class of his Majesty's subjects; or what is meant by their being exempt from these disabilities to the extent of their principles,' we profess ourselves unable to comprehend.

On the subject of reviling the Established Church, and wantonly attacking the Common Prayer, and on the strange explanations which have at various times been given of these misdemeanours, Mr. Beldam might, with advantage, have been more diffuse. The remarks of lord Ellenborough, in the cases of the Attorney-General v. Hone, and all the proceedings on that remarkable series of trials, would have furnished him with copious mate

rials for observation. If our notion of the legal affinity between nonconformity, and all other offences against religion, be correct, we apprehend, that a careful examination of this topic would have been by no means irrelevant.

Perhaps, the most decidedly persecuting act in the statute book, is that of 5 & 6 Edward VI., c. 1, revived by 1 Eliz. c. 2. By this astonishing law, "any persons within the king's dominions, willingly and wittingly present at any form of Common Prayer, administration of the sacraments, or other rites contained in the book of Communion, other than is therein forth, or that is contrary to the statute 2 & 3 Edward VI., c. 1, is liable on conviction, before the justices of Oyer and Terminer, justices of the assizes, or of the peace in their session, by a jury, his own confession, or otherwise, for the first offence, to imprisonment for six months; for the second offence, to imprisonment for one whole year; and for the third, to imprisonment for life." This statute is still in force, being unrepealed by any express enactment, and not falling within any conditional clauses in the Toleration Act!

The remaining parts of Mr. Beldam's book contain the laws affecting the dissenting clergy, dissenting schoolmasters, and those relating to their public worship. The disabilities under these heads are not numerous, but they are sufficiently useless and vexatious to make us wish that the legislature, instead of simply discussing the Test acts, may institute an inquiry into all the laws affecting Protestant Dissenters; and that they may come to such a decision, as will make Mr. Beldam's Compendium useless, except as a historical document.

It is, however, to the laws, imposing a sacramental test, that we suppose the attention of parliament will be peculiarly devoted. This has been always the great grievance of which the Dissenters have complained; not, we apprehend, so much on account of the direct consequences-since they are partially rescinded by the Annual Indemnity act-but because it is the badge which marks their sect as an inferior and degraded caste. How these laws, which were once considered so unimportant a species of persecution, as scarcely to deserve the name, have operated to diminish the consciousness of personal respectability among Dissenters; how much the sphere of their political ambition has been narrowed by this means, and, as a necessary consequence, how much more than they themselves would be at all willing to confess, their knowledge has been confined, and their station in society depressed, must be evident to all who have had the slightest communication with them. How much, on the other hand, this same system of exclusion has augmented their zeal, and of course their numbers; how much hostility against the Established Church it has infused into their minds, and by what strong links it has combined them into a class capable of accomplishing any design they may have in view against it, must be equally obvious to all who have studied their

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