sources of interest, personal regard, and na- | and push him into an hermitage. It is really tional taste, such a tempest of loyalty has set in upon the people, that the 47th proposition in Euclid might now be voted down with as much ease as any proposition in politics; and, therefore, if Lord Hawkesbury hates the abstract truths of science as much as he hates concrete truth in human affairs, now is his time for getting rid of the multiplication table, and passing a vote of censure upon the pretensions of the hypothenuse. Such is the history of Eng-rious from smallness of profits; but it is the lish parties at this moment; you cannot seriously suppose that the people care for such men as Lord Hawkesbury, Mr. Canning, and Mr. Perceval, on their own account; you cannot really believe them to be so degraded as to look to their safety from a man who proposes to subdue Europe by keeping it without Jesuit's bark. The people, at present, have one passion, and but one

such as the world never witnessed, and more than equal to a century less convulsed. Wha have been its effects? When the French advanced like a torrent within a few days' march of Vienna, the Hungarians rose in a mass; they formed what they called the sacred insurrection, to defend their sovereign, their rights and liberties, now common to all; and the apprehension of their approach dictated to the reluctant Bonaparte the immediate signature of the treaty of Leoben: the Romish hierarchy of Hungary exists in all its former splendour and opulence; never has the slightest attempt been made to diminish it; and those revolutionary principles, to which so large a portion of civilized Europe has been sacrificed, have here failed in making the smallest successful inroad.

is the best method, to continue the persecuting law, and to suspend it every year,-a method which, while it effectually destroys the persecution itself, leaves to the great mass of mankind the exquisite gratification of supposing that they are enjoying some advantage from which a particular class of their fellowcreatures are excluded. We manage the Corporation and Test Acts at present much in the same manner as if we were to persuade parish boys, who had been in the habit of beating an ass, to spare the animal, and beat the skin of an ass stuffed with straw; this would preserve the semblance of tormenting without the reality, and keep boy and beast in good humour. How can you imagine that a provision for the Catholic clergy affects the 5th article of the Union? Surely I am preserving the Protestant church in Ireland, if I put it in a better condition than that in which it now is. A tithe proctor in Ireland collects his tithes with a blunderbuss, and carries his tenth hay-cock by storm, sword in hand; to give him equal value in a more specific shape, cannot, I should imagine, be considered as injurious to the church of Ireland; and what right has that church to complain, if Parliament chooses to fix upon the empire the burthen of supporting a double ecclesiastical establishment? Are the reve-testants have hitherto paid to the Catholic nues of the Irish Protestant clergy in the slightest degree injured by such provision? On the contrary, is it possible to confer a more serious benefit upon that church, than by quieting and contenting those who are at work for its destruction?

It is impossible to think of the affairs of Ireland without being forcibly struck with the parallel of Hungary. Of her seven millions of inhabitants, one-half were Protestants, Calvinists, and Lutherans, many of the Greek Church, and many Jews; such was the state of their religious dissensions, that Mahomet had often been called in to the aid of Calvin, and the crescent often glittered on the walls of Buda and of Presburg. At last, in 1791, during the most violent crisis of disturbance, a diet was called, and by a great majority of voices a decree was passed, which secured to all the contending sects the fullest and freest exercise of religious worship and education; ordained (let it be heard in Hampstead) that churches and chapels should be erected for all on the most perfectly equal terms, that the Protestants of both confessions should depend upon their spiritual superiors alone, liberated them from swearing by the usual oath, "the holy Virgin Mary, the saints, and chosen of God;" and then, the decree adds, "that public offices and honours, high or low, great or small, shall be given to natural born Hungarians who deserve well of their country, and possess the other qualifications, let their religion be what it may." Such was the line of policy pursued in a diet consisting of four hundred members, in a state whose form of government approaches nearer to our own than any other, having a Roman Catholic establishment of great wealth and power, and under the influence of one of the most bigoted Catholic courts in Europe. This measure has now the experience of eighteen years in its favour; it has undergone a trial of fourteen years of revolution,

The whole history of this proceeding of the Hungarian diet is so extraordinary, and such an admirable comment upon the Protestantism of Mr. Spencer Perceval, that I must compel you to read a few short extracts from the law itself:-"The Protestants of both confessions shall, in religious matters, depend upon their own spiritual superiors alone. The Protestants may likewise retain their trivial and grammar schools. The church dues which the Pro

parish priests, schoolmasters, or other such officers, either in money, productions, or labour, shall in future entirely cease, and after three months from the publishing of this law, be no more anywhere demanded. In the building or repairing of churches, parsonage-houses, and schools, the Protestants are not obliged to assist the Catholics with labour, nor the Catholics the Protestants. The pious foundations and donations of the Protestants which already exist, or which in future may be made for their churches, ministers, schools and students, hospitals, orphan-houses and poor, cannot be taken from them under any pretext, nor yet the care of them; but rather the unimpeded administration shall be entrusted to those from among them to whom it legally belongs, and those foundations which may have been taken from them under the last government, shall be returned to them without delay; all affairs of marriage of the Protestants are left to their own consistories; all landlords and masters of families, under the penalty of public prosecution, are ordered not to prevent their subjects and servants, whether they be Catholic or Protestant, from the observance of the festivals and ceremonies of their religion," &c. &c. &c.-By what strange chances are mankind influenced! A little Catholic barrister of Vienna might have raised the cry of no Protestantism, and Hungary would have panted for the arrival of a French army as much as Ireland does at this moment; arms would have been searched for; Lutheran and Calvinis houses entered in the dead of the night; and the strength of Austria exhausted in guarding a country from which, under the present libera, system, she may expect, in a moment of danger the most powerful aid; and let it be remem bered, that this memorable example of politica wisdom took place at a period when many great monarchies were yet unconquered in

Gog and Magog have produced as much in fluence upon human affairs as the pope has done for this half century past; and by spoiling him of his possessions, and degrading him in the eyes of all Europe, Bonaparte has not taken quite the proper method of increasing his influence.

Europe; in a country where the two religious | true answer is, the mischief does not exist parties were equal in number; and where it is impossible to suppose indifference in the party which relinquished its exclusive privileges. Under all these circumstances, the measure was carried in the Hungarian diet by a majority of 280 to 120. In a few weeks, we shall see every concession denied to the Catholics by a much larger majority of Protestants, at a moment when every other power is subjugated but ourselves, and in a country where the oppressed are four times as numerous as their oppressors. So much for the wisdom of our ancestors so much for the nineteenth century -so much for the superiority of the English over all the nations of the continent!

Are you not sensible, let me ask you, of the absurdity of trusting the lowest Catholics with offices correspondent to their situation in life, and of denying such privilege to the higher? A Catholic may serve in the militia, but a Catholic cannot come into Parliament; in the latter case you suspect combination, and in the former case you suspect no combination; you deliberately arm ten or twenty thousand of the lowest of the Catholic people;-and the moment you come to a class of men whose education, honour, and talents, seem to render all mischief less probable, then you see the danger of employing a Catholic, and cling to your investigating tests and disabling laws. If you tell me you have enough of members of Parliament, and not enough of militia, without the Catholics, I beg leave to remind you, that, by employing the physical force of any sect, at the same time when you leave them in a state of utter disaffection, you are not adding strength to your armies, but weakness and ruin :-if you want the vigour of their common people, you must not disgrace their nobility, and insult their priesthood.

I thought that the terror of the pope had been confined to the limits of the nursery, and merely employed as a means to induce young master to enter into his small clothes with greater speed, and to eat his breakfast with greater attention to decorum. For these purposes, the name of the pope is admirable; but why push it beyond? Why not leave to Lord Hawkesbury all farther enumeration of the pope's powers? For a whole century, you have been exposed to the enmity of France, and your succession was disputed in two rebellions; what could the pope do at the period when there was a serious struggle, whether England should be Protestant or Catholic, and when the issue was completely doubtful? Could the pope induce the Irish to rise in 1715? Could he induce them to rise in 1745? You had no Catholic enemy when half this island was in arms; and what did the pope attempt in the last rebellion in Ireland? But if he had as much power over the minds of the Irish as Mr. Wilberforce has over the mind of a young Methodist, converted the preceding quarter, is this a reason why we are to disgust men, who may be acted upon in such a manner by a foreign power? or is it not an additional reason why we should raise up every barrier of affection and kindness against the mischief of foreign influence? But the

But why not a Catholic king, as well as a Catholic member of Parliament, or of the cabinet?-Because it is probable that the one would be mischievous, and the other not. A Catholic king might struggle against the Protestantism of the country, and if the struggle was not successful, it would at least be dan gerous; but the efforts of any other Catholic would be quite insignificant, and his hope of success so small, that it is quite improbable the effort would ever be made; my argument is, that in so Protestant a country as Great Britain, the character of her Parliaments and her cabinet could not be changed by the few Catholics who would ever find their way to the one or the other. But the power of the crown is immeasurably greater than the power which the Catholics could obtain from any other species of authority in the state; and it does not follow, because the lesser degree of power is innocent, that the greater should be so too. As for the stress you lay upon the danger of a Catholic chancellor, I have not the least hesitation in saying, that his appointment would not do a ten-thousandth part of the mischief to the English church that might be done by a methodistical chancellor of the true Clapham breed; and I request to know, if it is really so very necessary that a chancellor should be of the religion of the Church of England, how many chancellors you have had within the last century who have been bred up in the Presbyterian religion?-And again, how many you have had who notoriously have been without any religion at all?

Why are you to suppose that eligibility and election are the same thing, and that all the cabinet will be Catholics, whenever all the cabinet may be Catholics? You have a right, you say, to suppose an extreme case, and to argue upon it-so have I: and I will suppose that the hundred Irish members will one day come down in a body, and pass a law compelling the king to reside in Dublin. I will suppose that the Scotch members, by a similar stratagem, will lay England under a large contribution of meal and sulphur; no measure is without objection, if you sweep the whole horizon for danger; it is not sufficient to tell me of what may happen, but you must show me a rational probability that it will happen: after all, I might, contrary to my real opinion, admit all your dangers to exist; it is enough for me to contend that all other dangers taken together are not equal to the danger of losing Ireland from disaffection and invasion.

I am astonished to see you, and many good and well-meaning clergymen beside you, paint. ing the Catholics in such detestable colours; two-thirds, at least, of Europe are Catholics,they are Christians, though mistaken Chris tians; how can I possibly admit that any sect of Christians, and above all, that the oldest and

the most numerous sect of Christians, are incapable of fulfilling the common duties and relations of life: though I do differ from them in many particulars, God forbid I should give such a handle to infidelity, and subscribe to such blasphemy against our common religion! Do you think mankind never change their opinions without formally expressing and confessing that change? When you quote the decisions of ancient Catholic councils, are you prepared to defend all the decrees of English Convocations and universities since the reign of Queen Elizabeth? I could soon make you sick of your uncandid industry against the Catholics, and bring you to allow that it is better to forget times past, and to judge and be judged by present opinions and present practice.

byterian. Nothing, in fact, can be more un candid and unphilosophical* than to say that a man has a tail, because you cannot agree with him upon religious subjects; it appears to be ludicrous, but I am convinced it has done infinite mischief to the Catholics, and made a very serious impression upon the minds of many gentlemen of large landed property.

In talking of the impossibility of Catholics and Protestants living together with equal pri vilege under the same government, do you forget the cantons of Switzerland? You might have seen there a Protestant congregation going into a church which had just been quitted by a Catholic congregation; and I will venture to say that the Swiss Catholics were more bigoted to their religion than any people in the whole world. Did the kings of Prussia ever refuse to employ a Catholic? Would Frederick the Great have rejected an able man on this account? We have seen Prince Czartorinski, a Catholic secretary of state in Russia; in former times, a Greek patriarch and an apostolic vicar acted together in the most per fect harmony in Venice; and we have seen the Emperor of Germany in modern times entrust. ing the care of his person and the command of his guard to a Protestant prince, Ferdinand of Wirtemberg. But what are all these things to Mr. Perceval? He has looked at human nature from the top of Hampstead Hill, and has not a thought beyond the little sphere of his own vision. "The snail," say the Hindoos, "sees nothing but its own shell, and thinks it the grandest palace in the universe."

I must beg to be excused from explaining and refuting all the mistakes about the Catholies made by my Lord Redesdale; and I must do that nobleman the justice to say, that he has been treated with great disrespect. Could any thing be more indecent than to make it a morning lounge in Dublin to call upon his lordship, and to cram him with Arabian-night stories about the Catholics? Is this proper behaviour to the representative of majesty, the child of Themis, and the keeper of the conscience in West Britain? Whoever reads the letters of the Catholic bishops, in the appendix to Sir John Hippesly's very sensible book, will see to what an excess this practice must have been carried with the pleasing and Protestant nobleman whose name I have mentioned, and from thence I wish you to receive your answer I now take a final leave of this subject of about excommunication, and all the trash | which is talked against the Catholics.

Ireland; the only difficulty in discussing it is a want of resistance, a want of something A sort of notion has, by some means or difficult to unravel, and something dark to another, crept into the world, that difference of illumine; to agitate such a question is to beat religion would render men unfit to perform the air with a club, and cut down gnats with together the offices of common and civil life; a scimitar; it is a prostitution of industry, and that Brother Wood and Brother Grose could a waste of strength. If a man says I have a not travel together the same circuit if they dif- good place, and I do not choose to lose it, this fered in creed, nor Cockell and Mingay be en- mode of arguing upon the Catholic question I' gaged in the same cause if Cockel was a can well understand; but that any human beCatholic and Mingay a Muggletonian. It is ing with an understanding two degrees elevated supposed that Huskisson and Sir Harry Engle- above that of an Anabaptist preacher, should field would squabble behind the speaker's chair conscientiously contend for the expediency about the Council of Lateran, and many a turn- and propriety of leaving the Irish Catholics in pike bill miscarry by the sarcastical contro- their present state, and of subjecting us to such versies of Mr. Hawkins Brown and Sir John tremendous peril in the present condition of Throckmorton upon the real presence. I wish the world, it is utterly out of my power to con I could see some of these symptoms of earnest-ceive. Such a measure as the Catholic ques ness upon the subject of religion; but it really seems to me, that, in the present state of society, men no more think about inquiring concerning each other's faith than they do concerning the colour of each other's skins. There may have been times in England when the quarter sessions would have been disturbed by the theological polemics; but now, after a Catholic justice had once been seen on the bench, and it had been clearly ascertained that he spoke English, had no tail, only a single row of teeth, and that he loved port-wine,-after all the scandalous and infamous reports of his physical conformation had been clearly proved to be false, he would be reckoned a jolly felow, and very superior in flavour to a sly Pres

tion is entirely beyond the common game of politics; it is a measure in which all parties ought to acquiesce, in order to preserve the place where, and the stake for which they play. If Ireland is gone, where are jobs? where are reversions? where is my brother, Lord Arden? where are my dear and near relations? The game is up, and the speaker of the House of Commons will be sent as a present to the menagerie at Paris. We talk of waiting from particular considerations, as if centuries of joy and prosperity were before us; in the next ten years our fate must be decided; we shall know, long before that period, whether we can

Vide Lord Bacon, Locke, and Descartes.

in the English people never existed in any people in the world; it has been misdirected, and squandered upon party purposes in the most degrading and scandalous manner; they have been led to believe that they were bene. fiting the commerce of England by destroying the commerce of America, that they were de fending their sovereign by perpetuating the bigoted oppression of their fellow-subject their rulers and their guides have told them that they would equal the vigour of France by equalling her atrocity; and they have gone on wasting that opulence, patience, and courage, which, if husbanded by prudent and moderate counsels, might have proved the salvation of

bear up against the miseries by which we are | barb and plums. A better spirit than exists threatened, or not; and yet, in the very midst of our crisis, we are enjoined to abstain from the most certain means of increasing our strength, and advised to wait for the remedy till the disease is removed by death or health. And now, instead of the plain and manly policy of increasing unanimity at home, by equalizing rights and privileges, what is the ignorant, arrogant, and wicked system which has been pursued? Such a career of madness and of folly was, I believe, never run in so short a period. The vigour of the ministry is like the vigour of a grave-digger, the tomb becomes more ready and more wide for every effort which they make. There is nothing which it is worth while either to take or to re-mankind. The same policy of turning the tain, and a constant train of ruinous expeditions has been kept up. Every Englishman felt proud of the integrity of his country; the character of the country is lost for ever. It is of the utmost consequence to a commercial people at war with the greatest part of Europe, that there should be a free entry of neutrals into the enemy's ports; the neutrals who carried our manufactures we have not only excluded, but we have compelled them to declare war against us. It was our interest to make a good peace, or convince our own people that it could not be obtained; we have not made a peace, and we have convinced the people of nothing but of the arrogance of the foreign secretary; and all this has taken place in the short space of a year, because a King's Bench barrister and a writer of epigrams, turned into ministers of state, were determined to show country gentlemen that the late administration had no vigour. In the mean time commerce stands still, manufactures perish, Ireland is inore and more irritated, India is threatened, fresh taxes are accumulated upon the wretched people, the war is carried on without it being possible to conceive any one single object which a rational being can propose to himself by its continuation; and in the midst of this unparalleled insanity we are told that the continent is to be reconquered by the want of rhu

good qualities of Englishmen to their own destruction, which made Mr. Pitt omnipotent, continues his power to those who resemble him only in his vices; advantage is taken of the loyalty of Englishmen, to make them meanly submissive; their piety is turned into persecution, their courage into useless and obstinate contention; they are plundered because they are ready to pay, and soothed into asinine stupidity because they are full of vir tuous patience. If England must perish at last, so let it be; that event is in the hands of God; we must dry up our tears and submit. But that England should perish swindling and stealing; that it should perish waging war against lazar-houses, and hospitals; that it should perish persecuting with monastic bigotry; that it should calmly give itself up to be ruined by the flashy arrogance of one man, and the narrow fanaticism of another; these events are within the power of human beings, and I did not think that the magnanimity of Englishmen would ever stoop to such degradations.

Longum vale!

PETER PLYMLEY.

Even Allen Park (accustomed as he has always been to be delighted by all administrations) says it is too bad; and Hall and Morris are said to have actually blushed in

one of the divisions.