Great Britain, France, and Ireland, with the same character on a throne, that had hitherto dignified an imitation mahogany arm-chair bought cheap at a sale of the household furniture of a retired retailer of brown sugar and black tea, neatly wrapped up in ounce-weight paper pyramids; and such a "cutpurse of the Empire," would have no more scruple in cheating his country than his customers. But we expect the gentlemen of England to speak in a very different mood of the solemn sanction of a great oath. Dr Phillpotts has, with well-merited and unsparing severity, slashed up a paltry article in the Edinburgh Review on this subject-making use, all along, not unwarrantably, though we wish it had been otherwise, of the name of Mr Jeffrey. One writer at least, name ungiven but not unknown, (Mr. Brougham, beyond all doubt, although Dr Phillpotts says he has been assured on good authority of the contrary,) in that Journal, which, though brought on its marrow-bones by the Doctor, still keeps striking in effectually at its victorious assailant, has written often indeed, before this of the late king, in a style most revolting and loathsome. Mr Jeffrey, we all know, is not that writer; but we are altogether at a loss to under stand how he could ever have brought himself to declare, indignantly too, that he is not responsible for any statements made by others in the Review of which he is editor. He is not, we grant, responsible for every sentence, word, or syllable; and on subjects of mere literature, or even philosophical speculation, though then too, surely a certain consistency is expected, and a certain responsibi lity incurred, it would be absurd to take him, or any other editor of a periodical journal, too severely to task for sentiments and opinions, to which he might give his" imprimatur," without stamping upon them the authority of his own approbation. But in a most momentous and mighty question of national politics, involving the character and conscience of his king, and the best, nay all the in terests of his country, how can an eminent and distinguished person like Mr Jeffrey have the folly to declare, that he, the editor, stands aloof from his contributors, and that, in fact, were they to be guilty of high trea

son, and compass the king's death, not only " his withers would be unwrung,' but his body undecapi tated? Such declaration is utterly ir reconcilable with his manly charac ter-it is absolute infatuation-and covers himself, as editor of his journal, with deep, dark, and ineffaceable disgrace. As the head of the Whig party in Scotland, the only man of great genius among them, he not only is answerable for all such articles, but he ought either to rejoice in them when in print, or suitably to dispose of them in manuscript. He is under no physical necessity-we shall not profane the term moral-of editing either high or petty treason-insolent insults on his dead king's capa city and conscience-inhuman insults on that disorder in his reason with which it pleased God to visit him; though, perhaps, the visitation was one of mercy on his old age. Mr Jeffrey cannot regard such things with absolute indifference, still less can he, like others, chuckle over them in the same savage glee in which they were scribbled by " certainly the First Man in the House." Neither is it credible that he can have overlooked them; and therefore he must stand the brunt of Dr Phillpotts's fire, which is kept up with great steadiness, quickness, and precision, till the fort in which the editor has taken up a position is reduced to ashes, the governor made prisoner, after narrowly escaping death, and the garrison marched out without the honours of war.

The king, in one of his letters to Mr Pitt, had said that he considered the Coronation Oath as a religious obligation on him to maintain the fundamental maxims of the Constitution, namely, that the Church of England, being the established one, those who hold employments in the State must be members of it, and consequently obliged, not only to take oaths against Popery, but to receive the Holy Com munion agreeably to the rites of the Church of England. He adds, that this opinion was not formed on the moment, but had been imbibed by him for forty years. The Reviewer, says Dr Phillpotts, "with the folly, as well as the malice, of a Thersites, is pleased to charge his Majesty, in very plain terms, for expressing these sentiments, with the alternative either of dotage or falsehood. "It is quite im

possible," says he, "that one having all his faculties about him could write this, with the regard to truth which the late King has been so much praised for." Nothing, truly, can be more disgusting than that-a traitorous sneer. But Dr Phillpotts goes on to expose the gross ignorance of the Reviewer, who has said, "To say nothing of the Forty Indemnity Bills, which he had made acts, how came he to pass the Irish acts of 1778 and 1793, which took off infinitely more restrictions from the Catholics than they left behind !” The Reviewer also says, in reference to the late King's having consulted the late Lord Kenyon, as in a case of conscience, respecting the CoronationOath, "we much question the fairness, if not the constitutionality, of secretly consulting a Chief-Justice and an Attorney-General, instead of a CabinetMinister, upon the policy to be pursued in a great question of state." Now, is it not " quite refreshing" to behold here the infliction of the bastinado?

"Mr Jeffrey knows quite well, what is the nature of an Indemnity Act, and he has probably looked into one of those of which he is speaking. He must know, therefore, that there is nothing whatever in such an Act at variance with the principle which his Majesty professed ;-that, so far from it, a Bill of Indemnity proceeds on the very principle of recognising the binding character of the Law which has been violated, though it excuse the violation, in consideration of the special circumstances of the occasion. As far, therefore, as the Indemnity Acts are concerned, it is quite plain, that Mr Jeffrey has made this indecent charge absolutely without a particle of ground on which to sustain it.

"But he speaks further of the Irish Acts of 1778 and 1793, saying that His Majesty could not with truth, if he were in his senses, assert that he had the view he professes of his Coronation Oath, when he assented to them. Did Mr Jeffrey ever look into these Statutes? The first of them, I am bound in charity to believe, that he never so much as saw. For if he had seen it, he could not have had the effrontery to affect to adduce it in derogation of his Majesty's honour. That Act enables Papists, on taking certain oaths, to enjoy the rights of property on the same footing as their Protestant fellow-subjects. What is there in this at variance with his Majesty's principle, of maintaining it as a fundamental maxim of the Constitution, that those who

hold employments in the State must be members of the Established Church?

"There remains the statute of 1793. And

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what are the provisions of that Act? Why, that Roman Catholics may hold all of fices civil and military,' except those which are properly, and according to all reasonable construction, employments in the State;' from these they are, by that very statute, expressly excluded.

་

"Let my readers now look back to the insolent charge brought by Mr Jeffrey against this prince, who, beyond all who ever sat before him on the British throne, deserved and acquired the glorious title of a Patriot King, and then let them assign to his calumniator that measure of indignation which their own feelings will dictate.

reviling the late King; he must also give "But Mr Jeffrey is not satisfied with us his notion of what is the duty of all kings, in the very delicate matter of informing their own conscience, in a case in which their own conscience alone is responsible; and the result is, that the sovereign must, in fact, have no conscience at all. He must consider himself as degraded from the rank of a moral and accountable creature, and must submit to be directed in all his sentiments, even of religious duty, by his cabinet for the time being. This is really the sum and substance of Mr Jeffrey's opinion, though he has thought fit to express it in the following very peculiar terms: We much question the fairness, if not the constitutionality, of secretly consulting a chief justice, and an attorneygeneral, instead of a cabinet minister, upon the policy to be pursued in a great question of State.' Mr Jeffrey is no fool; he knows as well as any man, that the point on which the King consulted Lord Kenyon, was nothing like what he has thought proper here to state it. He knows, that his Majesty did not, on this occasion, consult his chief justice on any matter of State at all, but on a previous question, which, whatever may be Mr Jeffrey's sentiments upon it, appeared to George III., and, thank God, appears to George IV., infinitely more important to him than any matter of State whatever. His previous question was, whe ther, if a measure which had been, in fact, rejected by his cabinet at that particular time, should ever hereafter be proposed to him, he, the King, was not so bound by his Coronation Oath, that he must give his decided negative to it? This, say, was the point on which Lord Kenyon was consulted; it was a point of conscience; and on it the King, with perfect fairness,' and perfect constitutionality,' might have con❤ sulted any person whatsoever, Mr Jeffrey, if he had pleased. If it were not so, what

a puppet would the King of England be! what a slave, amidst the surrounding liber. ty of his free-born subjects! a slave in the tenderest and most momentous of all concerns! Literally, his very soul would not be his own, but would be held at the arbitrary will of the minister of the day.

"But suppose the question were, what Mr Jeffrey states it to be, a question of State policy, is he so ignorant of the British Constitution as to assert, or does he think the rest of the world so ignorant of it as to believe, that it is unfair or unconstitutional for the King of England to consult the chief justice of England, and to demand from him a written opinion (thus making him formally responsible for his opinion) on a question of State intimately connected with constitutional law, that chief justice being a peer of the realm, (and, as such, called by his very patent to advise his Majesty in the arduous concerns of the realm,) and one of his sworn privycouncillors? Yes,' says Mr Jeffrey, 'unless the same chief justice, peer, and privycouncillor, be also a cabinet minister.' I will not condescend to answer such an assertion, but will send him who makes it, if he is honest in making it, to learn better what the Constitution of England is, be fore he presumes thus to read lectures on it to his sovereign. Meanwhile, it can hardly be necessary to remind him, that somewhat more than twenty years ago, it was a matter of grave discussion in both Houses of Parliament, whether it was consistent with the spirit of the Constitution, however it might be justified by the letter, for the chief justice to be a member of the Cabinet at all. In the course of that discussion, which was handled (among others) by men to whom it would not be derogatory to Mr Jeffrey, and his whole fraternity of Reviewers, to look up with some deference and respect,-in the course of that discus. sion, I repeat, never once was anything so preposterous asserted, or even imagined, as this newly-discovered maxim, (which, however, if true, would have been conclusive of the whole question,) that a chief justice may not be consulted by his sovereign at all, unless he be first made a cabinet-minister. What was the language of Mr Fox on that occasion? I have always held, and still hold, that a Cabinet Council is unknown to our law ;'*-and, in order that Mr Jeffrey may not ride off on the distinction suggested by the word Law, I will add another dictum of the same statesman :- In point of fact, there is nothing in our CONSTITUTION which recognises any such institution as a Cabinet Council.' But Mr Fox's language went still further, and was still more conclusive in settling the present point. Where no personal

* Hansard's Debates, vol. vi. p. 709. VOLA XXIV.

objections are, or can be, stated, one must hear it recommended with astonishment, that a class of officers, who are admitted to be perfectly eligible to the Privy Council, should not be allowed to discharge the duties of a Privy Councillor, should, in fact, be excluded from the performance of duties, which, on their admission to the Privy Council, they are sworn to perform.

"In truth, if any Cabinet should dare to exercise the right, which Mr Jeffrey claims for them, that of excluding from the royal closet any peer of the realm who has demanded an audience of his sovereign, much more who has been required by the sovereign to advise him, they would incur the guilt for which (inter alia) the two Spencers, in Edward II.'s time, were impeached and banished the kingdom, viz. :

That they, by their evil covin, would not suffer the great men of the realm, the king's good counsellors, to speak with the king, or to come near him; but only in the presence of the said Hugh the father, and Hugh the son, or one of them, and at their will, and according to such things as pleased them.'+

"So much for this very shallow person's knowledge of the Constitution: so much for his qualifications to set up as Schoolmaster with his Frimer' for the instruction of kings."

"Dead for a ducat!"

The Reviewer had said that Dr Phillpotts (alluding to the King's correspondence with Mr Pitt, edited by him) had selected a period, when the late King's reason was clouded, "for trying his intellects in conflict with those of Mr Pitt." Here, too, the Reviewer is utterly and justly demolish¬

ed.

"Mr Jeffrey, here, too, knows that there is not the smallest shadow of reason for the assertion he has found it convenient to make; he knows, that there was, in this case, no trying of intellects in conflict? one with another; for he knows, that the parties were speaking to two very different points; that Mr Pitt addressed to his Majesty a statement (a most able and most exquisitely written statement) of his views of the expediency of conceding to the Roman Catholics a full and equal share of all the powers of the state, (under certain most important conditions, of which I shall have more to say hereafter,) while his Majesty, in answer, expressly waves all discussion of Mr Pitt's question, and tells him at once, that he is precluded from entering into it by higher considerations than the highest reasons of State expediency which can be devised."

Blackstone, p. 292. C

Of the language in which the Re viewer had expressed his indecent sneers, Dr Phillpotts says, "his ob

servations on this matter are made in

language respecting the quality of the late King's intellects with which I certainly shall not disgust the readers of these pages." Nor shall we.

The Reviewer asserted, that "the oath plainly applies to the King in his executive capacity, not as a branch of the legislature; it forbids him either to hang men without judgment, or to attack the Church illegally; or to take from religion its lawful sanction, or to take from the Church its lawful rights." This is, indeed, most miserable stuff, yet we agree with Dr Phillpotts in thinking that it has a meaning. To attack the Church illegally, the Doctor observes, in this land of law and justice, would be beyond the enterprise of the hardiest reformer. The true mode of attacking it, must be to attack it by the law itself; and as in these days of triumphant liberality, there is nothing liberal which a sanguine reformer may not hope to carry through at least one House of Parliament, he has here abundant encouragement to attempt to sap the main buttress of the Established Church, the King's Coronation Oath. If his Majesty could be but persuaded, that this oath does not really prevent him from assenting to any bill presented to him by Parliament, however hostile to the interests or the exist

ence of the Church, what might not be hoped for in the long run, from adroitly practising (what must sometimes occur) on "the fears of the brave, and the follies of the wise?" But we must extract, unbroken, the admirable reply to all this insidious

nonsense.

"Now, in the first place, in what chapter of the Constitution, in what page of the Common or Statute Law of the Realm, has Mr Jeffrey discovered this two-fold royal person-an executive and a legisla. tive? The word person I use advisedly; for it is plain that Mr Jeffrey treats the most important faculty of the soul, that of conscience, as quite distinct in the legisla. tive from the executive. 'I swear,' says the King, that I will, to the utmost of my power, maintain,' &c.-But Mr Jef. frey tells his Majesty, that it is only the executive King, not the legislative, that has taken this oath!-After this exquisite specimen of ingenuity, his present Majesty may, I fear, be tempted to adopt the

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weightiest dictum,' as Mr Jeffrey calls it, of his royal Father, I hate all metaphy sics,-above all, Scotch metaphysics."

"But Mr Jeffrey is not without an argument in support of his distinction (when was there a metaphysician without an argument for anything ?) The first promise of the Oath rides over the whole." This first promise is as follows-' I solemnly promise and swear, that I will go. vern the people of the kingdom of England, &c. according to the Statutes in Par liament agreed on, and the laws and customs of the same.'

"Now,' says Mr Jeffrey, it is quite plain that this can affect the King only in does the same ("I will, to my power, his executive capacity-the second promise cause law and justice in mercy to be exe cuted in all my judgments." Therefore the third must do so likewise! Such is the

logic of this aistinguished orator, critic, and metaphysician.

"But without pressing the absurdity further, I will undertake to show, first, that even the first of these promises affects the King as legislator, no less than in his executive capacity.' Secondly, that whether it does so or not, nothing but utter ignorance, or the grossest disingenuousness, could have induced Mr Jeffrey to hazard such an assertion respecting the third promise of the oath, that which binds the King to maintain the Established Church,

"First, of the first. Till Mr Jeffrey shall be able to persuade the world, that to'govern a people does not include the notion of making laws for them,' he will, I apprehend, find few persons disposed to agree with him in the view he takes even of his strongest position. True, the King is to govern the people of this kingdom ' according to the Statutes in Parliament agreed on, and if the sentence ended here, there might be some small pretence for MrJ.'s construction of the first promise,

but, unfortunately, there are some other words behind, and the laws and customs of the same,' i. e. kingdom of England.

"Taking these last words into the account, and viewing the whole passage with due consideration of the nature of the ob ligation, and the time, purpose, and design, of imposing it, it is plain that the King is bound thereby to refuse to concur in making laws, contrary to the existing constitution, and the fundamental laws of the land. That there are fundamental laws,' if not above the power, yet beyond the moral competence, of the whole legislature to rescind them, what Englishman will hesitate to affirm? what Prince, who has read the Bill of Rights, will refuse to acknowledge? None of the illustrious House of Brunswick, I am well assured; and if the two Houses of Parliament should be so reckless of their duty, as to present