THESE are two admirable-two masterly speeches-and we shall lend our aid to the promulgation of the sentiments and opinions which they so eloquently-yet so gravely express -believing, as we do, that the measures they combat, if carried into effect, would eventually undermine and overthrow the British constitution.

The time, it is supposed by many, is approaching-is close at handwhen something will be done to satisfy the Catholics. Reports are abroad, precisely of the proper pitch of absurdity, for the greedy swallowing of the great grey-goggle-eyed public, who may be seen standing with her mouth wide open like a crocodile, with her hands in her breeches-pockets, at the crosses of cities on market-days, gluttonously devouring whatever rumour flings into her maw-nor in the least aware that she is all the time eating wind. People of smallish abilities begin to look wiser and wiser every day-their nods seem more significant in the shaking of their heads there is more of Burleigh-and in short sentences--that sound like apophthegms-they are apt to impose themselves on their own credulous selves as so many Solomons. The Dukethey have reason to know-sees the necessity of the thing now-Mr Peel has at last given in-and a bill-they have seen some of its heads-is forth

with to be brought into Parliamentfor the immediate relief of our seven million Catholic brethren, now all groaning (under what, pray?)—and they might add, apparently getting incomparable fun-rollocking and roaring-all over Ireland.

So delighted are these gentry with the prospect of Catholic Emancipation-two words, by the by, of the meaning of which they have not the most distant suspicion-that they occasionally get rather impertinent on your hands-wax witty against the wisdom of their ancestors-and, unaware of the ludicrousness of the exhibition, show you how the awkward squad take up their ground, in the March of Intellect. They accuse you to your face of being behind the Age, and go off in a mumble about Toryism. Now, we put it to the candour of the world-are we behind the Age? Quite the contrary. We are the forerunners of the Age. The Age is behind us-toils after us in vain ;-often loses sight of us, as we disappear in a flame of fire behind the horizon—and, in the race which we are running for the great stakes, is fairly distanced! Without meaning to be rude to one single soul, we hope that we shall be pardoned for intimating our belief, that your Pro- Popery-men are, for the most part, very considerable blockheads. Nay, do not start, gentlemen,

1828.

VOL. XXIV.

5 L

nor frown, for it is a melancholy truth. The nonsense you speak is so far beyond your own present conception of the case, that it might indeed prove dangerous to have your eyes opened all at once-all on a sudden-to the full extent of your ignorance and stupidity, -the shock might prove fatal. But, unfortunately, you do not confine your selves to mere nonsense,-which is necessarily harmless;-you allow designing people to mix up with your innocent nonsense, the poison of their own wickedness; and will you credit us when we tell you, that you are doing all the little that lies in your power to pollute and ruin the Christian religion?

And here it behoves us to be serious.-Ninety-nine in a hundred of your Pro-Popery-men are not Christians. They dare not say that they are not. Cowardice—that is, worldly prudence -makes them cloak their infidelity under liberalism. But try them by the tone and temper of their sentiments and opinions, on all occasions where the subject is the Protestant Church, and you see that the dunces are Deists.

As to their love of knowledge, it is false and affected-a lie. Were it true and sincere, how could they endure that Church which places Bible-readers under her ban, and execrates the poor man who would fain study the Word of God? The Roman Catholic superstition hangs, at its clearest, like a day of dense fogs-at its darkest, like a night of black clouds-over the reason and the conscience. He who denies or doubts that, must regard the Reformation as a mockery and a dream. Such doubt, or such denial, is incompatible with any attachment to Protestantism; and if you are a Papistpardon us-but on this question you must not open your lips. We are Protestants; and you must become one of Us before you can enjoy the blessings bought by Protestant blood.

It may be said, that it is not polite thus to abuse Papists. We are not aiming at being polite. It is not a question of courtesy, if it were, we should be the most courteous of the courteous. But it is a question of religion and of politics, involving the temporal and eternal interests of the human race. At least we think so; and thinking so, we must not hear one word said about Catholic Emancipation. Popery, we

say, is a fatal superstition; and a Protestant State must not trust its vital interests-its existence-to Papists. Call this bigotry, if you please if you please to be a fool. We love light, rather than darkness-knowledge rather than ignorance-freedom rather than slavery-therefore, no Catholic Emancipation. We desire to see all our Christian brethren-the very lowest-sitting in Heaven's sunshine-in other words, reading the Bible-therefore, no Catholic Emancipation. We desire to see all the people-down to the clay-hut or hovel-priest-taught, but not priest-ridden, with their consciences in their own keeping, within the sanctuary of the inner spirits, into which no fellow-creature is privileged at all times to intrude-and, therefore, no Catholic Emancipation. We desire that Christianity shall be the stability of the State-and, therefore, that Christianity may not change its divine character, from celestial sinking into terrene-no Catholic Emancipation. This is our bigotry-with which we are embued, both in blood and in brainin all our thoughts and in all our feeling, and they, whose bigotry owns no kindred with ours, either in its origin, its means, or its ends, will think us horrible monsters, and Maga a peerless paragon of iniquity, doomed some day to be smothered under the falling Heavens.

Meanwhile, an occasional bigotlike ourselves-arises to keep us in countenance-such as Scott, and Southey, and Phillpotts, and-Sir Robert Harry Inglis, whose two admirable speeches we are now about to abridge -or analyze. They deserve the widest circulation throughout these realms-and in our pages they shall have it-they shall cheer the hearts of hundreds of thousands of the leal and loyal-and none else, it is to be hoped, dare to look Maga in the face-or venture to meet her eye to eye, either when the orbs are kindling with fancy, or clouded with thought-in grave mood or gay, alike the terror of traitors and slaves.

A large part of the debate which had taken place before Sir Robert address. ed the House on this great question, had, on one side, proceeded on the assumption that there had been a considerable change in the principles and character of the Church of Rome; a

change so considerable as to justify the removal of all those securities against that Church, or at least of almost all those securities, with which the wisdom of a former age had surrounded the Protestant constitution of this country. Sir Robert contends, on the contrary, that the Church of Rome is not merely unchanged, but unchangeable that the evidence on which a change is, in the judgment of some, sufficiently proved, is, in itself, and on other points, so little trust worthy, as, at any rate, not to justify a great experiment on the constitution-that this experiment, the object so long and so clamorously sought under the name of "Catholic Emancipation," is of little benefit to the great mass of those, in whose name and behalf it is urged-that those, the very few, to whom it would be beneficial, it would still leave dissatisfied and discontented-that the claim so urged is not a right founded either in abstract natural justice, or in specific convention-and, lastly, that under these circumstances, it is wiser and safer, in the choice of many ways full of difficulties, to keep to that path, which, though not without its difficulties, is still the path by which the country has advanced to her present greatness, and the people to the largest aggregate of individual happiness ever yet com

bined.

Such is a clear and concise statement, almost in his own words, of the positions which this very able speaker undertook to establish; and he has established them in the face of a fire that soon slackened, and seems now exhausted, all but the smoke.

It does one's heart good, in the midst of so much trimming and tergiversation and apostacy, to listen to the simple, strong, sincere reasonings of an independent, honest, and enlightened man, on a question that has not only confused the heads, but cowed the hearts, of so many Protestant statesmen, who, nevertheless, pretend that they understand and value the blessings of the Reformation. Let us then follow him through his argument, and accompany him to his conclusion,-let the Catholics remain as they are, unless we wish to change the form and kill the spirit of the constitution.

The honourable member for the county of Armagh, that is, Mr Brownlow, desired, it seems, that he might

be met, not by old facts and old prejudices, but by new and contemporary evidence, and fair reasoning. Sir Robert denies the right (in an argument on a question involving the probabilities of human conduct in future) to expunge from our consideration all that is past, to deprive ourselves of all the benefits which history might give us, and to limit ourselves to the observations of our own ephemeral existence; yet he feels so confidently the strength of his position, even on the ground which his adversaries have chosen, that he is willing to meet them there, and with their own weapons. He, therefore, pledges himself, in his endeavour to prove the unchanged character of the Church of Rome, to use nothing but new and contemporary evidence, and all without prejudice. The evidence which he offers is as accessible as that on the table of the House, and more authoritative, because, in great part, it is the evidence of the Papal See itself.

This is the manly mode of meeting an adversary. True, that Lord Plunket (then Attorney-General for Ireland) particularly requested that no member would give the House any thing, however small, of " that old almanack history;" and many other persons, who had just sense enough to be inspirited by such smartness, but were altogether incapable of a similar effort so successful, sadly diluted its strength by the infusion of their own milk and water; and forthwith kept all prating away about that "old almanack history," or, as Mr Brownlow chose to express himself, "old facts and old prejudices," at the same time calling lustily for "new and contemporary evidence and fair reasoning." Now the truth is, that "reasoning" is not always to be had for the calling,-either fair or foul; and, what is equally to be lamented, when those gentlemen who have been so loudly demanding "fair reasoning" get it, they are sorely puzzled to know what to do with it-keep looking at it on all sides-and wonder what can possibly be the meaning of the article. This, at least, is certain, that not one of them all ever dreams of grappling with the said "fair reasoning,"-but they are all struck dumb by a single specimen-one paragraph furnished according to order,-turn on their heel, and walk off with whig faces,

which "to be admired, need but to be seen," till by and by, in some coterie of their own, they again wax eloquent on the cause of liberty all over the world.

Now, that Lord Plunket, or Mr Brownlow, or any other man of great, small, or no abilities, should tell us to shut our eyes to all past time, and to forget all history, may be in beautiful consistency and keeping with the character of a demi-semi-quaver of a WhigTory; but good men and true are neither afraid nor ashamed to look the past in the face-the present, or the future; -they cannot for their lives see how without memory you can have judgment; and knowing the difference between old facts and old women, they love old facts-they hug old facts to their bosoms-they would not give one steady, somewhat grey and grizzled, but still healthy, and robust, and bouncing old fact, who has stood the wear and tear of a couple of centuries, without the slightest symptoms of decay-for a score of poor, puny, spindle-shanked, asthmatic, and consumptive young facts, which a good political skittle-player would bowl down like nine-pins, but which, unlike them, when once bowled down, can never be set on end again, and must forthwith be flung among the wooden lumber that now encumbers the earth. As to old prejudices, they are a highly respectable class, and hold their heads high, (as they are well entitled to do, remembering the services they have done the state,) when they happen to meet, in society, with new fangled notions-a most presumptuous and upsetting class of low birth too-" begotten, yet scarce lawfully begotten"-and, what is very remarkable, in the case of such great, big, hulking fellows, with a bold bloom on their faces, they all die young-there scarcely being an instance, within the bills, of one of them having reached the maturity of manhood.

After this expression of our regard for old facts and old prejudices,we cheerfully turn again to Sir Robert Inglis, who, at the express challenge of his opponents, meets them in a complete suit of defensive and offensive armour of "new and contemporary evidence, and fair reasoning." Thus armed cap-a-pie, he is a formidable champion-while it is piteous

to see his challengers standing in the lists absolutely stark-naked-without a covering as ample as a short-tailed linen shirt, either of "old facts and old prejudices," or of "new and contemporary evidence and fair reasoning.” After a few buffets, of course, they all run off-scamper away-and in future times, if asked to recount their achievements, they would desire us to say nothing of that "old almanack history."

Sir Robert well says, that to measure the progress of public opinion, and the state of the human mind in any country, we should refer, not so much to her laws, not so much to her institutions, as to her literature-to that which represents man in every condition of his social and private life, which models his character, and is itself modelled by it. Now, by that test, let us try the Church of Rome. Let us inquire, not what her literature is, but what it is not. Her tyranny over literature, her proscription at this day of all the great masters of the human mind, can be paralleled only by the tyranny and the proscription which she exercised five centuries ago, over minds and bodies alike.

In the Index Librorum Prohibitorum, printed at Rome in 1819, is a list of books prohibited at this time, under the penalties of the Inquisition. If any one reads the works of heretics prohibited by the Church, he is subjected ipso facto, to the penalty of excommunication; and with respect to other works prohibited, the purcha ser is not entitled to receive absolution without first surrendering them to the priest. Whatever may be, upon others, the effect of this system, promulgated by a Church which claims to be infallible, and which, in the judgment of its true members, is always held to be infallible, who can help agreeing with Sir Robert Inglis, that to the unhardened conscience of a Roman Catholic, the sweeping prohibitions of this Index must be a snare, but that the feeble and the good will be caught and perish in it? And who can help also agreeing with him that the official republication of the Index at this day at Rome, and its reprint at Paris, proves that the governing powers in that Church intend to act upon it as far as they can,—that in the present state of the world, this act itself is a test of the spirit of the Church

of Rome, and not merely of her unchangeable spirit but of her ceaseless vigilance, and of her scrutinizing jealousy, exercised alike upon all subjects sacred and profane, in respect to which any freedom of inquiry has been or can be indulged?

For what works appear in the list? Bacon, De Augmentis Scientiarum Locke on the Human Understanding; Cudworth's Intellectual System; Milton's Paradise Lost; Guiccardini, Thuanus, Robertson, and Sismondi. The Church of Rome has proscribed, too, Copernicus, both in his own work, and in Kepler's Epitome, also-to make all things even-says Sir Robert -Descartes, and more than one of his commentators. Nay, the sentence against Galileo, was renewed and republished in 1819! The work of Algarotti on the Newtonian System, and Fontenelle's Plurality of Worlds, suf

fer the same condemnation-so that every vindication of science, every effort of free inquiry, every attempt to disengage the mind from the trammels of authority, is alike and conveniently consigned to the Inquisition. As to Ecclesiastical History, the Church of Rome is of course singularly jealous, and here her prohibitions

are austere and extreme.

"There is one inference from these prohibitions which I think is peculiarly worthy of the recollection of the House. The Church of Rome, which, with an eye so microscopic, and a hand so firm, and a voice so peremptory, has discovered, seized, and prohibited so much, has thereby virtually sanctioned what she has not condemned, in respect at any rate to the works of her own Communion published under her own immediate domination. The writings, therefore, even of individuals, when so published in Roman Catholic countries, and above all in the Papal States, become the standard of the Papal doctrine: they are no longer private effusions, for which the authors only, and not the Papal See, ought to be held responsible; they are, and will remain, authentic expositions of the claims and principles of the Church of Rome, until that Church, which has hitherto thought nothing either too minute for her jealousy, or too vast for her grasp, shall formally denounce them. It would be unjust to apply this principle to the publications of a free State and a free Church like our own; and to take the doctrines of our own Establishment from any other standard than its own autho

rised formularies: but, surely, it is not inconsistent with fair argument, more particularly in respect to the imperial claims of the Church of Rome, to maintain, that, whilst having the like jurisdiction over those who extend and those who narrow her powers, she has condemned every work in defence of the liberties of the Gallican Church, she must, by parity of reason and necessary consequence, be held to sanction and uphold all the works in support of her own ultramontane principles: I indeed Church of Rome is as much bound by would hold that in all other matters the the Council of Lateran as by the Council of Trent; that a claim to depose kings, promulgated by one Pope and one Council, and not renounced and reprobated by a subsequent Pope and a subsequent Council, is, in the history of an infallible Church, a claim which may sleep but is not dead, and which the blast of war might any day rouse again."

Nothing is more common than to hear ignorant people panegyrizing the wisdom and enlightened views, moral and religious-nay, even political-of Roman Catholic writers-and then asking triumphantly-what danger can you dread from sentiments and opinions like these? What is the difference, they would fain ask, or rather they do ask, between Roman Catholic and Protestant? For to this point they all drive or rather many of them are driven— just like unto silly sheep.

Now, Sir Robert Inglis shews how uniformly the Church of Rome prohibits, wherever she has power, the exercise of any freedom of religious thought and inquiry in literature; and this sometimes even in the case of writers whom generally she claims, though often without much reason, as her own. Thus the Homilies of St Chrysostom, the Epistles of St Ignatius, and all the works of Erasmus in which he treats of religion, are equally proscribed with the works of Protestants. The Alciphron of our Berkeley, and the Philoluetherus Lipsiensis of Bentley, are given up to the Inquisition with the works which they refute. The Liturgy of the Church of England is, of course, excluded-Latimer and Ridley, Jewell and Parker, the "Pseudo-Archbishop of Canterbury," as he is called. These are followed by almost every great name in the Church of England-Beveridge, Bull, Pearson, Boyle, Sherlock, and