8. Irish Tranquillity under Mr. O'Connell, my Lord Mulgrave, and the Romish Priesthood. By ANTHONY MEYLER, M.D., M.R.I.A. 12mo. pp. 126. Dublin: Carson.

9. The Protestant Penny Magazine. 1 vol. 8vo. Dublin. 10. The Catholic Directory and Annual Register, for the year 1839. London. Booker and Dolman.

IT is well known to those who are conversant with the history of the Church of Rome, that there exists in the Papal court a tradition, which, received and to a certain degree acted upon by all who have filled the chair of the Pontificate, has, nevertheless, received the attention, furnished a clue, and given a complexion to the operations of Gregory XVI. to a far greater extent than it did to any of his predecessors :-viz., that the aspect of affairs in Ireland, and the ascendancy or depression of Popery in that island, is of more consequence to the Papacy, and more pregnant with advantageous or disastrous results to the general spread of Romanism, than its position in any other country in Christendom: that the dominancy of the priesthood of Rome over the population of Ireland, or the severance of the galling fetters of Popish superstition in that unhappy country, supplies an undeviating test of the present prosperity or decline, and a certain presage of the future spread or diminution of the power and influence of the Popedom, of the expansion or detrition of the Regalia Petri.

The State of Ireland, consequently, exhibits to the Papal court, at the present moment, the very highest possible assurance of the progressive spread of Romanism, and expressive indications of the speedy resuscitation of her supremacy in other countries, in all its vivid and remorseless energy. The operations of Popery in Ireland, and her restless efforts to attain the summit of her lofty claims, are no longer of an inceptive or preliminary description: the mask has gradually been laid aside, much that was esoteric and concealed in the dark hearts of her priestly vassals, has now been exposed to the broad face of day, with consummate audacity and equal abandonment of every claim to moral dignity, or even conventional morality. The formerly disavowed and repudiated designs of Popery are now rendered exoteric without a blush; and, feeling herself strong enough to cast aside her treacherous veil, she assumes, in the sister isle, her old and intolerant garb of claimant for ascendancy. Every clause in the Popish Emancipation Act that contained a supposed or intended security for the Church Establishment has been notoriously violated, and the Romish ecclesiastics, with daily increasing effrontery, usurp the titles of our bishops, and, emboldened by the impu

nity with which they are permitted to controvert and transgress the law, vie with each other in the frequency of its infringement. We may be pardoned, perhaps, for referring to an interesting and important debate on this subject, which took place in the House of Lords on the 8th of June, 1836.

On a petition being presented from a Romish priest against his archbishop, Lord Lyndhurst adverted to a gross instance of the spirit of Popery-an instance, too, taken not from the rude habits of the peasantry, but from the highest ranks of its ecclesiastics. In passing the Romish bill of 1829, it had been especially stipulated, as a protection to the Established Church, that no Romish bishop should assume the title of any Protestant see. The condition was of obvious necessity, and it was fully accepted. Yet the Popish bishops in Ireland had no sooner obtained the bill, than they assumed the titles of the Protestant sees. Men who had hitherto derived their titles from nominal dioceses at the ends of the earth, Bishops of Mesopotamia, Nova Zembla, Abyssinia, Monomatapa, or Madagascar, now dubbed themselves bishops of every existing see of Ireland, and even the whole Irish Church establishment was partitioned among them without delay. To this violation of compact and law Lord Lyndhurst called the attention of the House:

"There was one point (said his lordship) which showed how little regard was paid to certain restrictions insisted on at the time of passing the act, which at the time was considered and received as a boon. By the 29th clause of the Roman Catholic Relief Bill, it was provided that no person should assume the title of archbishop of a province, or bishop of a diocese, who was not entitled to do so by the law of the land. That was a point insisted on at the time. Now, on looking over the correspondence connected with this petition, he saw the name of a Roman Catholic as archbishop of a Protestant diocese. It would thus appear that these titles were assumed, though forbidden by Act of Parliament!"

Lord Melbourne attempted a feeble reply, that as the Romish religion required bishops, they must have some kind of titles.

The Duke of Wellington, himself the framer of the bill, now rose, strongly observed on the usurpation, and charged this breach of the law on the weakness or negligence of the ministry.

"The law (said the Duke) had forbidden the adoption of those titles, and had succeeded in preventing the use of them in England, but had not succeeded in preventing the use of them in Ireland. The law, the execution of which rested in the hands of noble lords opposite, was thus not at present sufficient to prevent the use of those titles in Ireland. But if they looked to other countries, they would find that those titles were abolished; and if they looked to this country, they

would see that though there were persons exercising those powers and authorities in the Romish Church, yet that the law in this point had been obeyed. And, in his opinion, the law ought to be, in like manner, obeyed in Ireland."

Lord Melbourne finally admitted that the act forbade the assumption by Roman Catholics of the titles held by the Protestant prelates, and accounted for his mistake by saying, "that he had supposed Lord Lyndhurst's objection applied to their calling themselves archbishops at all." The debate closed with the reception of the petition; but, notwithstanding the Premier's conviction, no order on the subject has gone forth from his council, and the Popish bishops usurp the Protestant titles by their own authority still.

So far as the Popish clergy are personally concerned, the whole transaction is of the most extraordinary kind. To a man of honour or conscience a promise is as binding as an oath. They have promised, and, in Lord Lyndhurst's words, promised readily and without remonstrance; they accepted the Relief Bill with all its conditions, and accepted it as a boon. This, too, is vouched openly before the world by the man who conducted the whole unhappy business; yet the Popish prelates have, without hesitation or palliation, broken the promise, and persist in breaking it. It is to be observed, as a further evidence, that they have thus broken it only in Ireland. If they felt that the assumption was capable of being defended by law or conscience, and was either a matter of concession or a matter of right, who can doubt that they would have asserted their claim here and assumed the titles of the English prelacy! If they call themselves archbishops of sees in Ireland, why not call themselves Archbishops of Canterbury and York in England? But no; they felt that the law had a vigilance in England which slept in wretched Ireland; that in England their personal power was nothing, while in Ireland they had only to domineer at will over a populace enslaved by bigotry, and govern all else by faction. Thus they dared to usurp in Ireland what they have not ventured even to ask for in England. We have remarked on this proceeding as an evidence of the designs of Popery, of its utter incapability of being bound by any compact, and of its palpable conspiracy to overthrow the Established Church in Ireland. Let Protestants beware.*

What so likely to engender turbulence and a contempt for

*See a powerful article in Blackwood's Magazine for October 1836, on Parliamentary debates.

Y

law in a priest-ridden people as this open and unblushing infringement, by their highest ecclesiastics, of the stipulations of the very act which conceded to them political equality? What so calculated to recommend or enforce (for it amounts to this) the total disregard of British legislation, and the repudiation of British connexion, as this flagrant violation, by the Irish vicegerents of the Pope, of the conditions which accompanied the withdrawal of legal prohibitions, and the ample but, alas! too liberal concession of political power?+

But turn we to another matter, equally important and equally

If there be any among our readers silly enough to imagine that any measure relating to Ireland, short of the total destruction of the Established Church, can check the vigorous system of agitation adopted by Irish demagogues, we think the history of the late Tithe Commutation Act, and the cry so speedily raised against it, will convince him of his folly. The plundering the Church of one-fourth of her property, and taking a million of the public money for the purpose of discharging the legal debts of anti-tithe conspirators, would, it was said, reconcile the people to the payment of the rent-charge. And yet what has been the case? At a meeting of the farmers of Kilmacon, county of Kilkenny, on the 16th of December, 1838, the following resolutions were adopted *

"1st. That we, the undersigned, solemnly declare that we feel a conscientious objection to the payment of tithes, as being a remnant of our slavery; an unjust tax on our property and industry, as being injurious to our religion and insulting to God. 2d. That we consider the man that will enforce tithes an oppressor, determined to perpetuate our slavery, to injure our property, and to insult our holy religion. 3d. That we consider the man that pays tithes (unless he be a Protestant) an enemy to his neighbour, an enemy to his country, an enemy to his religion, and an enemy to his God."(Then follows an immense list of signatures.)

And how do we find Mr. O'Connell and his Precursors speak of the rent-charge? As a remnant of a burden that was to be got rid of as soon as possible

"We received that measure (said Mr. O'Connell) merely as a temporary one, and should not cease our endeavours to procure the total extinction of the impost, on account of having received this instalment. I think it rather a foolish plan not to take five shillings in the pound from an insolvent creditor at any time; but I would always take care never, on any account, to give him a general release for that sum, (Cheers and laughter.) We have, then, got five shillings in the pound of our demand; we have struck off £160,000 from the total amount of the tithes, and I therefore do not care what language may be addressed to me on the subject. I do not mean or attempt to excuse myself for my vote on this measure; on the contrary, I put it before

pregnant with solemn warning and material for grave consideration. The violation of the oath taken by Roman Catholics on their admission to the British legislature has been a by-word; and instead of their solemn declarations of peaceful satisfaction

the people of Ireland as one of my merits, and as a motive for their good wishes towards me.' (Loud cheers.)

The report of the Precursors thus alludes to the same subject :"The act has a double aspect. One part is restrospective, and relates to the arrears of tithe composition on or before the 1st day of November last; the other part relates to the period from the 1st November, 1838, prospectively. The retrospective portion of the act relates, of course, to the arrears; the prospective relates to the nature and amount of the sums to be paid in future to the tithe-owners. The tithe composition is prospectively extinguished, and in lieu of it is established a rent-charge, payable in the manner hereinafter mentioned. The change of name from tithe composition to rent-charge is immaterial; but what is very material is, that the rent-charge is in every instance, by one-fourth, less than the tithe composition had hitherto been; so that wherever a tithe-owner heretofore was entitled to £400 a year, he is in future only entitled to £300; and so in proportion for greater or lesser sums. Your committee deem this a fact of considerable importance; it lessens at one blow the burden charged on the people of Ireland for the Protestant clergy and other titheowners 25 per cent., causing an alleviation which cannot be estimated at less than £160,000 per annum. It appears to your committee that no person desirous of the extinction of tithes could have voted against a measure so comprehensive for their purposes."

Sir James Graham, at Glasgow, thus speaks of this transaction, while contrasting the solemn asseverations of the dignitaries of the Roman Catholic Church, when seeking for emancipation, with their conduct and practices since that boon was obtained :

"I am sorry to confess that I stand before you in the situation of a dupe. I did believe that the Catholics would rest satisfied with an equality of civil rights, and that they did not aspire to religious ascendancy or the overthrow of the Protestant Church. I was present under the gallery of the House of Commons, in 1805, when Mr. Fox first moved the consideration of the Catholic claims, and when Mr. Grattan made his first speech in the British Parliament as their most powerful advocate. These speeches made an indelible impression on my mind, and I recollect them as well now as if it were yesterday. Both of them placed the claim of the Catholics to equal rights on the ground that it would give increased security to the Protestant Church; and they both declared that if any danger, in their judgment, were likely to arise to the national church from the concession, they would reject it at once as dangerous. But now the danger is not imaginary-one fact is worth ten thousand vague statements of opinion. Last session we surrendered one-fourth of all the tithes of Ireland, and relieved the Catholic occupier, placing the burden on the Protestant landlord. It