prejudice and the dishonesty, or the liberality and the plain dealing, are to be found. But, upon this state of the case, for we must now hasten to the conclusion which results from these premises, under these circum. stances, we say, with the Roman Catholics, solemnly and loudly declaring, that they will not submit to give any securities or pledges whatever for the maintaining of the Established Church: and, with the Protestants, as pointedly insisting either that no further concessions shall be made to the Foman Catholics, or that, if any such are made, that they shall be accom panied with such provisions and safeguards as shall most effectually protect and preserve the present Establishment in Church as well as State,where can we expect to discover that measure which shall reconcile these most opposite and jarring pretensions, which shall give satisfaction to ALL CLASSES of his Majesty's subjects? What on the contrary can we expect from a discussion opened under such auspices, but an increase of heat and of distraction,-what but "confusion worse confounded?"

Yet there have been found, it seems, 264 members, forming a majori ty of 40 in the House of Commons, who have resolved that it is fitting even under such circumstances to enter upon the discussion. We must 'say, and we trust we may say it without offence, that we conceive that a most heavy and fearful responsibility has been incurred by every member who has joined in that vote and most earnestly do we pray, that they may have the disposition, as they certainly will have, the opportunity of treading back their steps, before they have engaged themselves too far, be fore the constitution shall have received a wound which it may be beyond their skill to cure.

We have said that they will have the opportunity of repairing the mischief which has been done, they will have it before these lines go to the press and, if they will adhere to the principle upon which they profess to have gon, (we speak this of three fourths of the majority) it will be at tended with no great difficulty. They have only steadily to resist every measure proposed which does not manifestly and effectually, and to their full conviction, ensure "stability to the Protestant Establishment, and full satisfabtion to all classes." If this be adhered to, the vote of the 2d of March must fall to the ground of itself; it must turn out to all intents and purposes felo de se; and could we be permitted to name for it a proper destination, it might be consigned to that" Limbus," still believed in by the Papists, and where, according to Ariosto, (a Romanist himself, is preserved the famous donation of Constantine to Pope Sylvester.

But though this be the natural as well as the dignified course which we should expect to be pursued, though we might have hoped that even upon the first attempt to carry the vote into effect, inefficient, and even glaring

ly inefficient as it must prove; numbers would rise up, and not only oppose, but indignantly resent the change which is thus put upon them, and reprobate the fallacy of the lure by which they have been tempted to go such lengths; yet the experience which we have of human nature forbids us to be sanguine in our expectation of such a result. We are rather apprehensive lest that should happen which we have known often to take place, that men, having once been engaged by any means, with whatever reserve or hesitation, to sanction a measure, are led on by degrees, and step by step, to go so far, that at last they feel ashamed to draw back, and fancy that their honour is concerned to shew that they were right from the beginning; even thus, in the present instance, it may chance that those who have stood most precisely upon securities, may by little and little be persuaded, that this or that point may be given up, and so from the very circumstance that something has been given up, an argument may be raised for the giving up of more, 'till at last, if the Irish Romanists continue stiff in rejecting all accommodation, it will be said and agreed to, that after hav ing given up so much, it is very foolish to stickle for the little that remains, and thus, finally, every fence will be thrown down without the least re

'serve.

We are the more fearful lest this may happen, because we are persuaded, that, among the motives and the causes which have led to that vote, timidity and irresolution, and perhaps indolence, have been very prominent. Now it is precisely with the timid, the irresolute, and the indolent, that the process which we have described is likely to take effect; it is upon them that the mere sounds of peace and of conciliation when often and confidently repeated, will operate like magic ;-they are the sort of people who, for the mere purpose of putting by for the moment what wearies or terrifies them, are easily brought to rest upon promises, without at all considering the deceitfulness of the foundation upon which they are built.

For these reasons we feel, and shall ever feel it our duty to be instant, to be incessant, in urging every member of the Houses of Parliament (and to some of them we are sensible that our pages are not unknown; we are sure that this must be the case with Sir John Coxe Hippisley), that they be particularly careful to guard against surprise; that they will ever bear in mind the principle upon which they set out, and not suffer themselves to be seduced by any artifices beyond the line which they prescribed to themselves at the beginning. And, in particular, with respect to the hero of this review, as we are well aware how irresistibly powerful is that same love of distinction," and that there is no length to which it cannot hurry its votaries, we must conjure him to have always before his eyes his solemn profession, as it stands recorded in that which is as yet his last" sub

stance;" (p. 46) that is, "No man could look forward more confidently than himself did, to those constitutional benefits the State would e rive from ultimate concessions; but no man could deprecate those concessions more than himsef, if unaccompanied with such securities as might satisfy the minds of the most timid, in a rational view of their nature and extent." Again, in the very next page, he tells us of "reserving to the State that unquestionable security for its establishment, which it can never consistently relinquish.”

Alas! where shall S.r John Coxe Hippisley, where will Mr. Grattan, or Mr. Canning, find such securities as shall satisfy the most timid?" 2. Where will they find such as will sa isfy the Protestants of Ireland, whom it were a crime to expose to persecution? If they wish to know the truth of this, let them seek for information in the only way in which it is to be had, by the most private and confidential application to the individuals; in such a way as may assure the helpless heretic, that what he says will not be reported to his destruction; that it will not in any way come to the ears of those infuriated Papists who are ready to lay waste the property, and to do violence to the persons, of those who oppose their views; who, while they receive contributions from Protestants towards the building of Popish chapels, will not endure that any new Protestant churches should be erected, or even ancient ones restored. Indeed, the impulse of terror under which Protestants in Ireland are kept from declaring either wholly, or in part, their sentiments upon this question is so perfectly notorious, that we meet with no one in private society who does not acknowledge and lament it: and many actually hold that language which, as yet, it is deemed not decent to hazard in public assemblies, that so powerful are these terrorists, that are not to be resisted,—that since peace cannot be had any other way, we must be content at any risk to give them what they ask:

"Oremus pacem, et dextras tendamus inertes."

To those of ALL CLASSES, who, either by the security of their situation, or their natural disposition, are removed from the infection of such base and unworthy feelings, (we speak this with a reference to those who argue in this manner here; not to those who are actually suffering from violence, or the dread of violence, there; and whom Government is yet, it seems, unable effectually to protect ;) to the greater part, if not the whole, of our readers, whom we take to be "constantes viri," we must repeat our soJemn and most anxious warnings not to relax their exertions, nor abate of their vigilance. They must oppose the unceasing perseverance of their opponents, by perseverance equally unceasing. It was one of the late Mr. Burke's axioms, that "if you suffer a man quietly to tell you his story for a twelvemonth, you make him your master." He spoke this as a caution

against the Jacobins of his day; it is equally to be borne in mind with respect to the members and the partizans of that Church, which, wherever it was weakest, and had a point to carry, never scrupled to be most completely what is called Jacobinical. One of thei: most powerful engines is that insidious softening, and glossing over, as well the doctrines as the practices of Popery, and the dispositions and faith of the individuals. That which is true (if it be true at all) of only a few, they constantly represent as being the sentiments and the principles of all. And all this is repeated over and over again; notwithstanding the most express contradictions and the clearest refutations, as if it had never been contradicted or refuted: which is just what the Jacobins did twenty years ago. And thus it is hoped, that they who have nothing in view but the truth, may be wearied cut. For it is a wearisome task to go over the same ground time after time and it becomes even disgusting when the object is to detect falsehood and expose misrepresentation; because, to an ingenuous mind, this is of itself a disagree➡ able, though a necessary office. But, upon occasions of such moment, we must lay aside all fastidiousness. We must repeat our refutations as often as they repeat their assertions. And we must be as loud and as peremptory as they.

In this system, it will appear, that Sir John Coxe Hippisley is pretty deeply engaged: not of himself; we fully acquit him of any fabrication, or even adoption of what he believes to be fabricated. If indeed he had been an original contriver, he would not have put together, as we shall show he has, such contradictory materials. The mass would at least have been uniform. But Sir John having considered himself bound, like some other members of Parliament, to repeat all that his constituents have instructed him to say; or having, in order to please all, leut an ear to all, (as is very much the case with lovers of distinction,") he has set down in one page that which contradicts what is said in another, and brought forward authorities, out of which he may most conveniently be refuted.

To shew this, we will begin with his great point: with his accounts (for they are various) of IVth council of Lateran. Our readers well know that the decrees of this council speak so decidedly and imperatively on the head of persecution, that the new (as Archbishop Wake styled them), or the mitigated Papists, as we have called them, have always been greatly distressed, and laboured hard to get rid of it, and to shake its credit. And this, under the instructions of his constituents, (we do not mean the good men of Sudbury) Sir John, with a great parade of deep research, sets himself to do. Now how does he proceed? In a most extraordinary way, it must be allowed. First he tells us, (1st Speech, p. 74.)

"These councils"

speaking particularly of the IVth Lateran) may all be considered as gene

ral Parliaments in Christendom, the Lords Temporal and Spiritual being: assembled, and almost every Christian Sovereign, with the Emperors of the west, being present either in person or by representation."

Doubtless the reader will admire this pretty conceit of "the Lords Temporal and Spiritual being asssembled in these councils;" only we would ask what Lords Temporal were there except the Sovereigns, whom he specifies as distinct from them? And he should inform us also, where he has found that any of these " Lords Temporal" or Sovereigns" were ever allowed to give a vote. Oh no! but, it seems, they were of use in another way.

"On those occasions the temporal princes (and it must be recollected too that the Abbots often held great temporal sovereignties) often advised the Bishops to enforce their canons with the threat of temporal punishment, and promised to see such threats executed."

So the Abbots were these Temporal Lords, were they? a great discovery indeed! And, still more wonderful! the Temporal Princes did not indeed vote, but gave their advice. They sat upon the woolsacks in these same Parliaments and we are to believe that all these sanguinary Canons were really the work of the laity! that the poor innocent Popes, and Bishops; and Abbots, were seduced into these violent measures by these naughty counsellors of theirs! The Pope and his conclave, who are, we are told, infallible judges, in point of faith and morals, suffered themselves to be led by the nose by these ignorant Kings and Dukes who hardly knew how to write their names! Further, to prove that the Church could have nothing to do with persecution he cites the last canon of the IIId. council of Lateran, which is, as he says, "the first of the canons that inflict, or rather · threaten" [gentle and considerate Canons !]" temporal punishments."

"Although the discipline of the Church, which is confined to the exercise of sacerdotal jurisdiction, does not inflict sanguinary punishments, yet it is assisted by the constitutions of Catholic Princes, so that men may often. have recouse to a salutary remedy, when they are in dread of some corporeal chastisement."

Sir John might have added, that in the IVth. council of Lateran also, there is an express canon (canon 18.) which expressly prohibits any clerk from drawing up, or being any way concerned in any sentence which respects the effusion of blood. Nay, so tender is the council of the inno cence of the Clergy, that it prohibits their exercising any part of surgery which requires the use of the knife or the cautery!

We should say corporal. From this and other passages we think it not improbable that Sir John Coxe Hippisley's adviser is the same ingenious gentleman who drew up the Duke of Sussex's Speech. See our Number for January. Sir John has forgot to add that this is a quotation from St. Leo.