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sought. He said rightly, that if such means can with any probability be shewn, from circumstances, to add strength to our mixed ecclesiastical and secular constitution, rather than to weaken it, surely they are means infinitely to be preferred to penalties, incapacities, and proscriptions, continued from generation to generation. In consenting to such a statute, the Crown, he thinks, would act agreeably to the Oath. But, at the same time, his whole argument, to which we have now only alluded, takes for granted that the King is bound to withhold his assent from bills which would really endanger the safety of the Church-and he says,

"There is no man on earth, I believe, more willing than I am to lay it down as a fundamental law of the Constitution, that the Church of England should be united and even identified with it: but allowing this, I cannot allow that all laws of regulation, made from time to time, in support of that fundamental law, are, of course, equally fundamental and equally unchangeable: -none of this species of secondary and subsidiary laws have been held fundamental."

It is apparent, therefore, that the authority of Burke must be added to those of all public men, whose sentiments on the subject are on record, up to the end of the last century; they all recognised the Coronation Oath as binding the conscience of the Sovereign in all the acts of the kingly office; and, above all, in the most important of all his acts as Legislator. Dr Phillpotts, who is at all times above dissembling, declares that Mr Burke did indeed argue the point in a manner highly favourable to the views of the Roman Catholics; but he also de clares his belief-and gives his reasons for it-that were Burke alive now, he would, of necessity, be adverse to their present claims. Burke argued in favour of the concessions then sought; and this one expression, "then sought," is the answer to all, or almost all, the arguments founded on Burke's authority on the question. All that was then sought, and in one most important particular, more than all, has, long ago, been granted.

"The Irish Act, of 1793, gave to the Roman Catholics all that Mr Burke laboured, by that letter, to obtain for them; and it moreover threw into the chalice one fatal ingredient, which has corrupted and VOL. XXIV.

poisoned all the rest has perverted what was meant for a cup of blessing,—a wellspring of mutual love and lasting tranquillity,-into a source of bitterest and deadliest hatred,-a stimulant to the most insatiable and turbulent ambition; I mean the unrestricted grant of the elective franchise."

Attend to Burke's language in his letter to Sir H. Langrishe. He sets out with stating, that he knows not with certainty what the Roman Catholics intended to ask, but that he conjectures something is in agitation towards admitting them, under certain qualifications, to have some share in the election of members of Parliament;" and afterwards, he asks

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why it is inconsistent with the Coronation Oath of the King, to restore to his Roman Catholic people, in such manner and with such modification as the public wisdom shall think proper to add, some part in those franchises which they formerly had held without conclusion of the whole, he says exany limitation at all?" And at the "the object pursued by the pressly, Roman Catholics, is, I understand, and have all along reasoned as if it were so, in some degree, or measure, to be again admitted to the franchises of the Constitution ;" and this being so, with what fairness, asks Dr Phillpotts, can it be pretended that the authority of Mr Burke, as given in this very argument, is in favour of the unqualified concession of every franchise?

But Burke wrote another letter to Sir H. Langrishe on the same matterin which he says, with reference to the former one, "In the Catholic question I only considered one point: was it, at the time, and in the circumstances, a measure which tended to promote the concord of the citizens? I have no difficulty in saying that it was; and as little in saying that the present concord of the citizens (he wrote before the Rebellion, and before any indication of increased expectations on the part of the Roman Catholics) was worth buying, at a critical season, by granting a few capacities, which probably no man now living is likely to be served or hurt by." Is that language particularly acceptable to Mr O'Connell and Mr Shiel, and our friend the Surgeon?

Then attend to his Letter to Baron Smith, in which he states, in more full and express terms, the principle which

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guided and directed all his views. My whole politics at present centre on one point; and to this the merit or demerit of every measure with me is referable, that is, what will most promote, or depress, the cause of Jacobinism;" and again, "I am the more serious on the positive encouragement to be given to this religion, (the Roman Catholic,) because the serious and earnest belief and practice of its professors, form, as things stand, (January 1795,) the most effectual barrier, if not the sole barrier, against Jacobinism." Burke has, indeed, often been laughed at-yes, Edmund Burke laughed atfor his insane horror of Jacobinism." But he, and such as he, stayed the plague. Here Dr Phillpotts clenches the matter with a nail driven in forcibly and at the right point, nor is there a hand of Jacobin alive able to wrench it out.

"Would that be his opinion now? Could it be so? Where is the spirit of Jacobinism now most active? Where are all its energies most strongly, most unceasingly exerted?

Where, but in the Association, the Mock-Parliament at Dublin ?-Whither are now the wishes, the hopes, the sanguine and ardent longings, of every Jacobin in the King's dominions directed, but to the same stirring scene? And would Mr Burke have leagued himself with such a band? Would he have become, in his old age, the champion of Jacobinism,' the zealot of that unholy cause, abhorrence of which mastered every other passion and feeling of his heart,-could suspend the anguish of his almost frenzied grief, could make him for a while forget the bereavement of the one sole object of his earthly hopes, and rouse him to exertion even from the listlessness of despondency? The supposition is absurd."

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In the posthumous works of Burke we find Political Test," drawn up with much deliberation, and intended to have been proposed to Parliament in 1790, which shews his intense anxiety for the preservation of the Protestant religion, and for the protection of the Established Church. We cannot now quote it, but it contains this clause, That I never will employ any power or influence which I may derive from any power or influence, &c. to come, to be elected into any corporation, or into Parliament, give any vote in the election of any member or members of Parliament, &c. or with any hope that they may promote the

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same to the prejudice of the established Church, &c." On this valuable document Dr Phillpotts remarks:

"It is valuable on many accounts, but most especially, as affording the plainest evidence of what Mr Burke considered to be the necessary and indispensable duty of Parliament in every case, in which it is proposed to remove any of the existing se

curities of the Established Church. It is an obvious consequence, that, whenever for any change of the law on this fundaMr Burke was found among the advocates mental point, he must be always understood as meaning either to provide some stronger bulwark for the Church by the proposed change, or, at least, not to dimi nish its existing security. Carrying this principle with us, and adding to it the evidence derived from other parts of his writings, we shall find it easy to shew that Mr Burke, like Mr Pitt, if he were now alive, would, of necessity, be adverse to the present claims of the Roman Catholics."

Farther, whatever his opinion might be of the fitness of Burke's concession, it was professedly influenced by a view of what were then the existing facts of the case, which facts have since been changed in a degree scarcely to be estimated. "On a fair canvass," says he, "of the several prevalent parliamentary interests in Ireland, I cannot, out of the three hundred members, of whom the Irish parliament is composed, discover that above three, or-at the utmost four, Catholics, would be returned to the House of Commons." How stands the case now-and what would Burke have thought now?

"Is this the case now? Is it not, on the contrary, found, by experience, that neither the influence of property, nor here. ditary attachment to ancient and honourable names, nor the ties of gratitude, nor the hope of future favour, nor any earthly spiritual authority? motive, can avail against the mandates of Is it not certain that

a very large portion, and only uncertain how large, of the representation of Ireland, is in the hands of the Priests? Mr O'Connell has scrupled not to say, that the whole, or almost the whole, will soon be in the same hands; and, in proof of his own re

liance on the accuracy of this assertion, he has scrupled not to proclaim his readiness to offer himself as candidate to represent a County (the county of Cavan) in which he has not (as I am informed) a single acre of ground, on the mere strength of his merit as an agitator.

"This is the answer to every argument drawn from the authority of Mr Burke, re

specting the concession of seats in parliament to the Roman Catholics of Ireland. His general principles are opposed to it; and the exception, which he admitted in their favour, was founded on a state of things, which not only is gone by, but has been succeeded by one utterly and essentially at variance with it."

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At a subsequent period, he said, if amongst our Clergy, (the Roman Catholic,) one seditious sermon can be shewn to have been preached, we will readily admit there is good reason for continuing the present laws in all their force!!"

"Could the man who wrote this sentence, and that man, Mr Burke,—had he lived to witness the smallest part of that system of deliberate outrage and intimida tion, which has been adopted by the whole mass of Roman Catholics in Ireland, and, above all, by their Hierarchy and their Priesthood, could he, I ask, be the advocate and patron of such a cause? Could he give the sanction of his honoured name to the demands of those, who avowedly and exultingly proclaim their deadliest hate, their most active unmitigable hostility, to the Church of Ireland, the Protestant Episcopal Church there established by law ?"

So much for the opinions of Edmund Burke. Now, let us attend to those of William Pitt. Dr Phillpotts has been marked by the enemy for his publication of Mr Pitt's Letter. He has been thanked for it by Mr Butler, by the Irish orators, by the Edinburgh Review, and by that high-minded gentleman, plain-spoken politician, consistent political economist, and stanch Tory, Mr Huskisson. The letter consists of two parts. First, an able, brief, and comprehensive statement of all the reasons which are adduced for granting the claims of the Roman Catholics. "And I know not," says Dr Phillpotts," that any considerable arguments in favour of that measure are there omitted, except those which both the king and the minister would have equally disdained, the arguments addressed to the fears of Englishmen." Secondly, of a clearer and fuller statement of the conditions which he proposed to annex to the concession than has before been given to the public. These conditions are, first, a continuance of the oaths already required to be taken by Roman Catholics in Ireland. Secondly, a provision for the Roman Catholic Clergy, with a view of gradually attaching them to the government. Under proper regulations," he wisely con

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sidered that the measure would tend to attach its objects to government. Without proper regulations, he was well aware that it would tend only to excite their ambition, and encourage hopes of farther advantages. If given to them to be enjoyed as a right, and not to be forfeited, otherwise than by such misconduct as the law of the land would punish, it would have amounted to nothing less than an Establishment.

"Yet such was the measure, which, in the session of 1825, was actually received with favour in the English House of Commons; the bill conferring it had an ascertained passage through that House, and the Roman Catholics of Ireland were brought to regard it, not as a boon for which it became them to be grateful, but as a mere act of scanty justice which the Legislature besought them to take in good part. They had, it is true, shown, from the first, no disposition to be satisfied with any pecuniary provisions of a less independent nature. Dr Doyle had plainly told the Committees, that he and his brethren would rather receive nothing from the State, and that certainly, if they received at all, it should be on such terms only as should give them a vested lifeinterest in the grant. The obsequious House of Commons framed their measure accordingly; and Mr O'Connell, when reproached by his less judicious associates for having acceded to an expedient which bore the name, if not the semblance, of a security to this Protestant Establishment,' justified himself by characterizing very truly the prospect of carrying this

measure as

the likelihood of establishing, like the Scotch, an Established Church." " Mr Pitt had, it is plain from his language, a very different plan in view

such a plan, most probably, says our author, as is pursued towards the Presbyterian Ministers in Irelanda regium donum which might be withdrawn at any time, but would certainly never be withdrawn so long as its objects proved themselves worthy of the bounty of the State. Thirdly, Mr Pitt thought it indispensably necessary to any tolerable plan for removing the political disabilities of the Roman Catholics, that the Popish clergy should be subjected to superintendence and control-the plan which of all would have been the most difficult to effect, though, on every account, the most important. With such views, would he, to use the strong language of Dr Phillpotts, but not a whit too strong," have been either

a dupe or an accomplice in the contemptible fraud practised successfully on the House of Commons, by the bill of 1825 ?" We conclude our review of this most admirable pamphlet, with a most admirable quotation.

"Whether the practical difficulties attending the settlement of such a point would have been found too great even for Mr Pitt to overcome, is a question into which it is not necessary now to enter. That these difficulties, great in themselves, have, since his time, become incalculably greater, is unhappily too manifest; nor does there appear the smallest reason to believe, had he been spared to his country to the present day, that, according to the principles uniformly proclaimed by him, he could now be found among the advocates for concession. It is true, that he never would have endured that the mischief should have reached its present hideous magnitude, without any attempt to keep it down; he never would have endu red that the known laws of the land should be outraged with impunity, that they, whose duty it was to execute and enforce those laws, should not only witness their violation with calm complacency, but should, even in their place in Parliament, themselves pronounce the most plausible excuse for past delinquency, and administer the strongest provocative to future excesses: above all, he never would have endured, that the Majesty of British Legislation should be made the scorn and Laughing-stock of Irish demagogues that an illegal association, put down by an express statute in one month, should, in the next, rear its brazen front, without even the decent hypocrisy of a change of name, should beard Parliament with its insolent defiance, should raise a revenue for the purposes of disaffection-should

even make the shameless but not the imprudent avowal, (for confidence, in such a case, is strength,) that the collection of this revenue is not merely a contribution for past or present charges, but a bond of union and a pledge of future co-operation,

in the revolutionary jargon of the day, it is a means of organizing aud affiliating the people.'*-All this, I repeat, would not have been endured, had Mr Pitt still guided the helm of government,-ay, or had any one truly British statesman felt

himself responsible, in his own individual fame, for the results of the policy which has been pursued. It was only when we were given over to divided councils and conflicting principles,-worst of all, when' the wretched system was adopted, of compromising all difference of opinions, by acting upon none,-of banishing even the name of Ireland from the deliberations of nient season' the most perilous and urour rulers, of putting off to a convegent concerns of that distracted country,

stultâ dissimulatione, remedia potiùs malorum, quàm mala, differentes,'—it was only then, that we reached the full maturity of our present evils,-evils so great, that we can neither bear their pressure, nor endure their cure; but we go on, from day to day, from year to year, seeking, by any wretched nostrum the quackery of the age can furnish, to palliate a corroding plague, which is fast eating to our very vitals."

We cannot better conclude our review of Dr Phillpotts' admirable work, than by the final sentence of the Arch bishop of Tuam's speech in the House of Lords. Where, pray, on that occasion, was the Bishop of Chester?

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Though opposed to the motion of the noble lord, and though strenu ously opposed to those who called themselves the advocates of emancipation, yet he was a sincere friend to emancipation in its true sense. would emancipate them from the bondage of ignorance he would emancipate them from gross darkness-be would emancipate their minds by a liberal and scriptural education; not such an education as certain commissioners had recently recommended to the adoption of the legislature-not such an education as would adapt the Scriptures to the passions and prejudices of men-not such an educaas depended upon a corruption of the text, or upon subtractions from it; he was no advocate for such an education as that, but he was an advocate for an education founded upon God's holy word-he was for an education which took that word for its standard -an education which would tend to correct the superstitions of Ireland, and to improve her moral condition.”+

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"So it has been lately called by Mr Shiel, who adds, Every man, who contributes the smallest fraction of money, becomes the member of a vast corporation instituted for the liberty of Ireland.'"

+ Since this article was partly printed, a second edition (as it is called) of the pamphlet alluded to a few pages back, has appeared, with the name of the Reverend Richard Shannon on the title-page.

THE TOUR OF DULNESS.

1.

FROM her throne of clouds, as Dulness look'd
On her foggy and favour'd nation,

She sleepily nodded her poppy-crown'd head,
And gently waved her sceptre of lead,
In token of approbation.

2.

For the north-west wind brought clouds and gloom, Blue devils on earth, and mists in the air;

Of parliamentary prose some died,

Some perpetrated suicide,

And her empire flourish'd there.

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