House of Commons crushed it, than it determined that those who had composed it, the O'Connells and Shiells -were most fit and proper persons to be the legislators and ministers of Britain. This was unquestionably quite free from bigotry; perhaps it was not quite so free from foolishness.

In the session of 1823, sixty-two members of the House of Commons supported a resolution, which, in substance, declared that the Irish Church establishment was too large, and ought to be reduced. It was pretty well known, that these members had manifested anything but friendship towards the Church of England and its clergy. Mr Canning adverted to this in the debate on the Bill for putting down the Association, and declared, that Catholic emancipation, and the measure for spoiling the Irish Church, could not pass simultaneously. Unluckly Mr Hume, the famous arithmetic-master, had already given notice that he meant to place a similar resolution before the House for its adoption. Well-Mr Hume, sweet, pliant man! was prevailed on to withdraw his notice; and the nation, sweet, credulous creature! was to imagine that the sixty-two had changed their opinion. No disavowal was made, and the nation was not to be so illiberal as to look for one. The nation was to believe, that when the Catholics got into Parliament, the sixty-two would not assist them to lay the established church in ruins. Things being thus prepared, the Catholic question was ushered into the House of Commons.

Sir Francis Burdett opened the business with a speech that astounded every one. It was all-every syllable -every letter-sugar and butter. He had, in the preceding sessions, lavished everything upon the Orangemen that could be called abuse; now he declared these Orangemen to be the most noble and the best of beings. Those who, before, had always received from him the most bitter diatribes, were now honoured with an overflowing share of his panegyric. The established clergy were fine men -the Ministers were excellent meneven the opponents of the Catholics were very decent, honest people. The Catholic priests were the first of human beings; and the Catholics, generally, were the most finished speci

mens of purity, intelligence, wisdom, patriotism, and loyalty. Poor Sir Francis!-We never dreamed that he was capable of plunging himself into such degradation. We have laughed at his follies, we have pitied his failings, we have detested his schemes, we have execrated his conduct, and still we never, before this, ceased to respect him. We never mistook him for a statesman, but we always thought that he possessed a share of that manly, frank, blunt, honest, downright, old English spirit, which disdains trickery and cunning, and which we shall ever honour wherever we may find it. He blundered amazingly in his new tactics; he overdid the thing in the most shocking manner. His speech did but little service to his cause, and it lost him Westminster.

The advocates of the Catholics, generally speaking, were, no doubt, placed in a very distressing situation. Instead of being able to expatiate on Catholic desert, they had only Catholic delinquency to extenuate; instead of being able to claim the removal of the disabilities on the ground of qualification, they were actually compelled to claim it on the ground of disqualification !-Our clients have certainly acted in a most improper manner-they have manifested very bad religious and political feelings-they have uttered language and done deeds which we cannot possibly defendbut this constitutes their merit. This ought to be irresistible with you in their favour. If you decide against them they will become rebels, therefore you ought to make them your legislators and ministers !-A large part of their reasoning amounted to this, and no more. It certainly displayed great liberality, and this was no slight matter. It was new, and new sophistry is often more effectual than old arguments, however unanswerable.

It was speedily discovered that the securities, as they were called, appended to the Catholic Bill, were universally laughed at, and that without something else in the shape of security, the bill would never pass the House of Commons. Two wings, as they have been called, were therefore added, to enable the clumsy paperkite to soar to the Lords.

We have spoken as warmly as any one against the present system of manu

facturing votes in Ireland. We conceive that its tendency is to destroy morals, and to place country society in an unnatural and ruinous condition. But then we would have no milk and water measures; we would either reform the system properly, or we would let it remain until it could be reformed properly. A more important and complicated measure than its alteration could not well be imagined. Nothing can be more evident, than that such a measure to remove, and not to aggravate evil, ought to stand upon its own merits, and to proceed upon the most correct and ample information. Well, without inquiry-without any but the most imperfect information-a bill was introduced into Parliament to change this system. It was distinctly avowed, that the grand object of this bill was, not to remove the evils of the system, but to secure the passing of the relief bill; and that, if the latter bill should not pass, the former should be withdrawn. Of course, a measure of such immense public importance stood in the House of Commons on precisely this ground, no one could vote for it on its own merits-no one could vote for it without feeling that he was voting for the relief bill-one of the greatest evils of Ireland was to be touched, only on condition that the Catholics should be admitted to power! This, at least, is a new method of managing public affairs, and we are by no means sure that it is either a constitutional or a wise one.

We need not say that Mr Lyttleton's bill was miserably defective, and that it was calculated to increase, rather than to diminish the miseries of Ireland. In the monstrous state of things which that unhappy country presents, property is without its natural and proper influence. The landlords must drag their Catholic tenants by chains, they cannot lead them by counsel. A priesthood which is worse qualified to hold political influence than any body of religious teachers in Europe, is irresist ible in the field of politics against the landlord, if the latter cannot command his tenants. The bill was calculated to diminish the influence of the landlords, and, of course, to add to that of the priesthood; while it would have made scarcely any alteration in the circumstances and character of the voter. Had it carried the qualification to a pro

per height, it might have raised the latter to competence and a fair share of independence of opinion; he would, if a Catholic, always have voted for a Catholic, in spite of his landlord, but then he would have been able to distinguish between the demagogue and the honest man.

This bill was represented to be a security to the interests of the Protestants, and yet certain of the Catholics confessed their belief that it would operate in favour of Catholic party interests. We believe the same. So much for this security.

The other security was, a bill for taking the Catholic Priesthood into the pay of the State. It was stated, that this would make the priests negligent, destroy their influence over their flocks, and place them under the control of the government. Now, mark the provisions of this bill. The priests were to have incomes assigned them, which, taking all things into calculation, would have been greater than the incomes of a vast number of the English clergy, and yet they were to make no distinct abandonment of their present incomes; they were still to obtain their present fees, if they could. The loss of a follower would still have been a loss of income to the priest, as well as a loss of party power to the priesthood.A large portion of the aggregate income of the priest would therefore still have depended on his vigilance and industry. It is, we think, a very erroneous mode of calculating, to assume that dependance on his followers for bread is the only motive that can stimulate a religious teacher to exertion. Are the Catholic clergy of France and Spain at this moment indolent, and without influence? The competition for followers and supremacy to which the Irish Catholic priest must be constantly exposed, would have been quite sufficient to preserve from change his conduct and influence.

Again, the priest was not called on to surrender one iota of his authority. He was to retain his power of excommunicating-of imposing penanceof withholding absolution-of inflicting bodily punishment on the people for reading Protestant books, and entering Protestant places of worship.— He was to retain the whole of that tremendous penal code which gives him every conceivable advantage over the

regular clergy, and which would enable him to keep the people in abject slavery almost without effort.

How this bill would have enabled the government to control the priesthood, we cannot discover. What is it that gives the government influence with the regular clergy! It is their head; it appoints not only to the higher dignities, but to many of the inferior benefices. But it was to have no share, not the slightest, in the appointment of the Catholic priesthood;-it was to have no power whatever to remove any of its members for misconduct, or to withhold their stipend. It was merely to have the power to pay certain salaries to certain individuals whom the Pope and his bishops might name, and nothing more. The priests were to be as perfectly independent of it, in point of conduct, as they are at present, when it pays them nothing.

We need not say that the principle of this bill was, in the highest degree, unconstitutional and detestable. A quarter of a million of the public mo. ney was to be annually paid to individuals chosen, directly or indirectly, by a foreigner, and these individuals were to be accountable to no authority in the nation for their official conduct.

For this large sum, nothing was asked as an equivalent. All sides are declaiming against the pernicious nature of Catholicism. Much of its discipline, putting Protestantism out of sight, is directly at variance with the spirit of the laws and constitution—with liberty and the weal of the state-yet not a single attempt was made to obtain a modification of it in return for this lavish grant of the public money. No effort was even made to obtain for the poor Catholic laymen liberty to enter the national churches, and to read the Scriptures. So far from this, it was actually declared, that the Catholic priests would only accept the money as a matter of condescension and concession that, in accepting it, they would do prodigious violence to their feelings!! So much for the second and last security.

The common and natural way of settling differences was never once thought of. Not a single endeavour was made to obviate the objections of the great body of those who were hostile to the relief bill. The discipline of the Catholic church varies in almost every Catholic country, and this shows that

it is a thing capable of change. It is to this discipline principally, rather than to doctrines, that the nation objects. The Catholics declare that they ought to have a peculiar system of discipline in this country, because the government is a Protestant one; and surely this proves, that the nation, in its turn, has a right to insist on so much peculiarity in discipline as will leave nothing in Catholicism at variance with its laws and constitution. If something be conceded to the Catholics in the appointment of their clergy, certainly, on every principle of reason and justice, something ought to be exacted in return, in the way of securing knowledge and freedom to their laity in the discharge of their political duties. The boundless, unconstitutional, and dangerous political, as well as religious influence which the priesthood exercises over the vast body of the laity by means of its penal laws, is familiar to every one. No other body in the state is suffered to have such party laws as the Catholics possess. They would, with their present party laws, were the disabilities removed, enjoy exclusive privileges and liberties, as a political, as well as a religious party, of the most formidable and dangerous character. We know that this has been denied in Parliament; we know, too, that it has not been disproved, and we know, in addition, that it is incapable of disproof. We know that it is as much a matter of state necessity to prevent the Roman Catholic Church, as to prevent the Church of England, from having pernicious laws and direct authority. All this, however, was nothing. The detestable penal code of the Catholic church was not even to be spoken against. Lord Liverpool happened to censure certain parts of it, and he was covered with obloquy. The State was to concede everything, and the Catholics nothing; all that the latter asked was to be granted without examination!

The House of Commons never exhibited a more extraordinary spectacle than it did during the progress of these three bills. One member wished to vote for one of them, and yet he was compelled to vote against it, from the fear of supporting the others. Another member was placed in the same situation with regard to another of them. The wings of the misshapen and non

was a reason.

The business was very far from being free from trickery and deception. The security chiefly relied on was that for taking the Catholic priesthood into the pay of the nation. It was that which gained the wavering votes and secured the majority. Now, why was not this security introduced into the main bill, instead of forming a separate one?— Whatever might be the case with Mr Lyttleton's measure, it seems unaccountable that the payment of the priests was not made one of the provisions of the Catholic relief bill, when it was to procure votes for the latter, and not to deprive it of them. There It was, we believe, known to the chief framers and supporters of the bill for paying the priests, that it could not pass into a law, even if the other bills should do so. Some of them must have known this; yet these individuals assured the members who voted for the relief bill solely on condition that it should be accompanied by the one for paying the priests, that if the one bill became law, the other would likewise. Now, had one bill comprehended the provisions of both, it could not have become operative as a law, contrary to the sense of the majority of the House of Commons; but, as matters were, the disabilities might have been removed, both against the sense, and, even in

reality, against the vote, of this majority!

This took place not touching a petty question, an enclosure act, or a new company bill, but touching a measure of the most gigantic importance-a measure vitally affecting the interests of the empire. It is, in sooth, new in English legislation-it is, in sooth, a new method of managing the interests of England. If anything could make us detest the legislation of lawyers, it certainly would be proceedings like these. We care not who were the authors of them-we care not whether they were Irishmen or Scotchmenwe will tell them, that such things will not do in England. We are a plain, blunt, straight-forward people; and what we scorn above all other things is-imposition.

We will now say a word or two on certain parts of the debates in the House of Commons, which seem to call for some notice.

On one occasion, Mr Brougham very truly declared it to be highly unconstitutional to use the King's name in Parliament for the purpose of influencing the votes of the members. At the same moment, and in the same speech, Mr Brougham used the King's name evidently for this purpose. On several occasions, this learned individual declared, that the King must be, and was, friendly to the removal of the Catholic disabilities. Our readers know that this was as unwarrantable as it was unconstitutional. We will say no more; we will not drag his Majesty's name into the question: but we will advise Mr Brougham and his friends to wait until the King shall declare himself, before they hoist over themselves the royal standard. We have perhaps at present quite as much right to do it as they have.

It is a fact, although posterity will never believe it, that some members voted for the removal of the disabilities on the ground of its being contrary to "liberality" to retain them. Such portentous consequences will fashion sometimes produce among weak heads and pliant principles. Liberality, however, has, upon the whole, fared very scurvily in the business. It bas received such a thump on the head from the agitation of the Catholic question, as has stretched it in its last agonies.

We need say but little on the ex