University of Virginia Library

Angli suos ac sua omnia impense mirantur; cæteras nationes despectui habent. —Barclay (as quoted in one of Dryden's prefaces).

England began very early to feel the effects of cruelty towards her dependencies. “The severity of her government (says Macpherson) contributed more to deprive her of the continental dominions of the family of Plantagenet than the arms of France.” —See his History, vol. i.

“By the total reduction of the kingdom of Ireland in 1691 (says Burke), the ruin of the native Irish, and in a great measure, too, of the first races of the English, was completely accomplished. The new English interest was settled with as solid a stability as any thing in human affairs can look for. All the penal laws of that unparalleled code of oppression, which were made after the last event, were manifestly the effects of national hatred and scorn towards a conquered people, whom the victors delighted to trample upon, and were not at all afraid to provoke.” Yet this is the era to which the wise Common Council of Dublin refer us for “invaluable blessings,” &c.

It never seems to occur to those orators and addressers who round off so many sentences and paragraphs with the Bill of Rights, the Act of Settlement, &c., that most of the provisions which these Acts contained for the preservation of parliamentary independence have been long laid aside as romantic and troublesome. I never meet, I confess, with a politician who quotes seriously the Declaration of Rights, &c., to prove the actual existence of English liberty, that I do not think of that marquis, whom Montesquieu mentions , who set about looking for mines in the Pyrenees, on the strength of authorities which he had read in some ancient authors. The poor marquis toiled and searched in vain. He quoted his authorities to the last, but found no mines after all.

Liv. xxi. chap. 2.

The chief, perhaps the only advantage which has resulted from the system of influence, is that tranquil course of uninterrupted action which it has given to the administration of government. If kings must be paramount in the state (and their ministers for the time being always think so), the country is indebted to the Revolution for enabling them to become so quietly, and for removing skilfully the danger of those shocks and collisions which the alarming efforts of prerogative never failed to produce.

Instead of vain and disturbing efforts to establish that speculative balance of the constitution, which, perhaps, has never existed but in the pages of Montesquieu and De Lolme, a preponderance is now silently yielded to one of the three estates, which carries the other two almost insensibly, but still effectually, along with it; and even though the path may lead eventually to destruction, yet its specious and gilded smoothness almost atones for the danger; and, like Milton's bridge over Chaos, it may be said to lead,

The drivelling correspondence between James I. and his “dog Steenie” (the Duke of Buckingham), which we find among the Hardwicke Papers, sufficiently shows, if we wanted any such illustration, into what doting, idiotic brains the plan of arbitrary power may enter.

Tacitus has expressed his opinion, in a passage very frequently quoted, that such a distribution of power as the theory of the British constitution exhibits is merely a subject of bright speculation, “a system more easily praised than practised, and which, even could it happen to exist, would certainly not prove permanent;” and, in truth, a review of England's annals would dispose us to agree with the great historian's remark. For we find that at no period whatever has this balance of the three estates existed; that the nobles predominated till the policy of Henry VII., and his successor reduced their weight by breaking up the feudal system of property; that the power of the Crown became then supreme and absolute, till the bold encroachments of the Commons subverted the fabric altogether; that the alternate ascendency of prerogative and privilege distracted the period which followed the Restoration; and that, lastly, the Acts of 1688, by laying the foundation of an unbounded court-influence, have secured a preponderance to the Throne, which every succeeding year increases. So that the vaunted British constitution has never perhaps existed but in mere theory.

The monarchs of Great Britain can never be sufficiently grateful for that accommodating spirit which led the Revolutionary Whigs to give away the crown, without imposing any of those restraints or stipulations which other men might have taken advantage of so favourable a moment to enforce, and in the framing of which they had so good a model to follow as the limitations proposed by the Lords Essex and Halifax, in the debate upon the Exclusion Bill. They not only condescended, however, to accept of places, but took care that these dignities should be no impediment to their “voice potential” in affairs of legislation; and although an Act was after many years suffered to pass, which by one of its articles disqualified placemen from serving as members of the House of Commons, it was yet not allowed to interfere with the influence of the reigning monarch, nor with that of his successor Anne. The purifying clause, indeed, was not to take effect till after the decease of the latter sovereign, and she very considerately repealed it altogether. So that, as representation has continued ever since, if the king were simple enough to send to foreign courts ambassadors who were most of them in the pay of those courts, he would be just as honestly and faithfully represented as are his people. It would be endless to enumerate all the favours which were conferred upon William by those “apostate Whigs.” They complimented him with the first suspension of the Habeas Corpus Act which had been hazarded since the confirmation of that privilege; and this example of our Deliverer's reign has not been lost upon any of his successors. They promoted the establishment of a standing army, and circulated in its defence the celebrated “Balancing Letter,” in which it is insinuated that England, even then, in her boasted hour of regeneration, was arrived at such a pitch of faction and corruption, that nothing could keep her in order but a Whig ministry and a standing army. They refused, as long as they could, to shorten the duration of parliaments; and though, in the Declaration of Rights, the necessity of such a reform was acknowledged, they were able, by arts not unknown to modern ministers, to brand those as traitors and republicans who urged it. But the grand and distinguishing trait of their measures was the power they bestowed on the Crown of almost annihilating the freedom of elections,—of turning from its course, and ever defiling that great stream of Representation, which had, even in the most agitated periods, reflected some features of the people, but which, from thenceforth; became the Pactolus, the “aurifer amnis,” of the court, and served as a mirror of the national will and popular feeling no longer. We need but consult the writings of that time, to understand the astonishment then excited by measures, which the practice of a century has rendered not only familiar but necessary. See a pamphlet called “The Danger of mercenary Parliaments,” 1698; State Tracts, Will. III. vol. ii.; see also “Some Paradoxes presented as a New Year's Gift” (State Poems, vol. iii.).

See a pamphlet published in 1693, upon the King's refusing to sign the Triennial Bill, called “A Discourse between a Yeoman of Kent and a Knight of a Shire.”— “Hereupon (says the Yeoman) the gentleman grew angry, and said that I talked like a base commons-wealth man.”

The last great wound given to the feudal system was the Act of the 12th of Charles II., which abolished the tenure of knight's service in capite, and which Blackstone compares, for its salutary influence upon property, to the boasted provisions of Magna Charta itself. Yet even in this Act we see the effects of that counteracting spirit which has contrived to weaken every effort of the English nation towards liberty. The exclusion of copyholders from their share of elective rights was permitted to remain as a brand of feudal servitude, and as an obstacle to the rise of that strong counterbalance which an equal representation of property would oppose to the weight of the Crown. If the managers of the Revolution had been sincere in their wishes for reform, they would not only have taken this fetter off the rights of election, but would have renewed the mode adopted in Cromwell's time of increasing the number of knights of the shire, to the exclusion of those rotten insignificant boroughs, which have tainted the whole mass of the constitution. Lord Clarendon calls this measure of Cromwell's “an alteration fit to be more warrantable made, and in a better time.” It formed part of Mr. Pitt's plan in 1783; but Pitt's plan of reform was a kind of announced dramatic piece, about as likely to be ever acted as Mr. Sheridan's “Foresters.”

It would be a task not uninstructive to trace the history of Prerogative from the date of its strength under the Tudor princes, when Henry VII. and his successors “taught the people (as Nathaniel Bacon says) to dance to the tune of Allegiance,” to the period of the Revolution, when the Throne, in its attacks upon liberty, began to exchange the noisy explosions of Prerogative for the silent and effectual air-gun of Influence. In following its course, too, since that memorable era, we shall find that, while the royal power has been abridged in branches where it might be made conducive to the interests of the people, it has been left in full and unshackled vigour against almost every point where the integrity of the constitution is vulnerable. For instance, the power of chartering boroughs, to whose capricious abuse in the hands of the Stuarts we are indebted for most of the present anomalies of representation, might, if suffered to remain, have in some degree atoned for its mischief, by restoring the old unchartered boroughs to their rights, and widening more equally the basis of the legislature. But, by the Act of Union with Scotland, this part of the prerogative was removed, lest Freedom should have a chance of being healed, even by the rust of the spear which had formerly wounded her. The dangerous power, however, of creating peers, which has been so often exercised for the government against the constitution, is still left in free and unqualified activity; notwithstanding the example of that celebrated Bill for the limitation of this ever-budding branch of prerogative, which was proposed in the reign of George I. under the peculiar sanction and recommendation of the Crown, but which the Whigs thought right to reject, with all that characteristic delicacy, which, in general, prevents them when enjoying the sweets of office themselves, from taking any uncourtly advantage of the Throne. It will be recollected, however, that the creation of the twelve peers by the Tories in Anne's reign (a measure which Swift, like a true party man, defends) gave these upright Whigs all possible alarm for their liberties.

With regard to the generous fit about his prerogative which seized so unroyally the good king George I., historians have hinted that the paroxysm originated far more in hatred to his son than in love to the constitution. This, of course, however, is a calumny: no loyal person, acquainted with the annals of the three Georges, could possibly suspect any one of those gracious monarchs either of ill-will to his heir, or indifference for the constitution.

Historic. and Politic. Discourse, &c. part ii. p. 114.

Coxe says that this Bill was projected by Sunderland.

“They drove so fast (says Welwood of the ministers of Charles I.), that it was no wonder that the wheels and chariot broke.” (Memoirs, p. 35.)—But this fatal accident, if we may judge from experience, is to be imputed far less to the folly and impetuosity of the drivers, than to the want of that suppling oil from the Treasury which has been found so necessary to make a government like that of England run smoothly. Had Charles been as well provided with this article as his successors have been since the happy Revolution, his Commons would never have merited from him the harsh appellation of “seditious vipers,” but would have been (as they now are, and I trust always will be) “dutiful Commons,” “loyal Commons,” &c. &c., and would have given him ship-money, or any other sort of money he might have fancied.

Among those auxiliaries which the Revolution of 1688 marshalled on the side of the Throne, the bugbear of Popery has not been the least convenient and serviceable. Those unskilful tyrants. Charles and James, instead of profiting by that useful subserviency which has always distinguished the ministers of our religious establishment, were so infatuated as to plan the ruin of this best bulwark of their power, and, moreover, connected their designs upon the Church so undisguisedly with their attacks upon the Constitution, that they identified in the minds of the people the interests of their religion and their liberties. During those times, therefore, “No Popery” was the watchword of freedom, and served to keep the public spirit awake against the invasions of bigotry and prerogative. The Revolution, however, by removing this object of jealousy, has produced a reliance on the orthodoxy of the Throne, of which the Throne has not failed to take advantage; and the cry of “No Popery” having thus lost its power of alarming the people against the inroads of the Crown, has served ever since the very different purpose of strengthening the Crown against the pretensions and struggles of the people. The danger of the Church from Papists and Pretenders was the chief pretext for the repeal of the Triennial Bill, for the adoption of a standing army, for the numerous suspensions of the Habeas Corpus Act, and, in short, for all those spirited infractions of the constitution by which the reigns of the last century were so eminently distinguished. We have seen very lately, too, how the Throne has been enabled, by the same scarecrow sort of alarm, to select its ministers from among men, whose servility is their only claim to elevation, and who are pledged (if such an alternative could arise) to take part with the scruples of the King against the salvation of the empire.

Somebody has said, “Quand tous les poëtes seraient noyés, ce ne serait pas grand dommage;” but I am aware that this is not fit language to be held at a time when our birth-day odes and state-papers are written by such pretty poets as Mr. P---e and Mr. C*nn*ng. All I wish is, that the latter gentleman would change places with his brother P---e, by which means we should have somewhat less prose in our odes, and certainly less poetry in our politics.

“It is a scandal (said Sir Charles Sedley in William's reign) that a government so sick at heart as ours is should look so well in the face;” and Edmund Burke has said, in the present reign, “When the people conceive that laws and tribunals, and even popular assemblies, are perverted from the ends of their institution, they find in these names of degenerated establishments only new motives to discontent. Those bodies which, when full of life and beauty, lay in their arms and were their joy and comfort, when dead and putrid become more loathsome from remembrance of former endearments.” —Thoughts on the present Discontents, 1770.

Juvenal. Sat. x. v. 92.

The senate still continued, during the reign of Tiberius, to manage all the business of the public; the money was then and long after coined by their authority, and every other public affair received their sanction.

We are told by Tacitus of a certain race of men, who made themselves particularly useful to the Roman emperors, and were therefore called “instrumenta regni,” or “court tools.” From this it appears, that my Lords M---, C---, &c. &c. are by no means things of modern invention.

There is something very touching in what Tacitus tells us of the hopes that revived in a few patriot bosoms, when the death of Augustus was near approaching, and the fond expectation with which they already began “bona libertatis incassum disserere.”

According to Ferguson, Cæsar's interference with the rights of election “made the subversion of the republic more felt than any of the former acts of his power.” —Roman Republic, book v. chap. i.

Andrew Marvell, the honest opposer of the court during the reign of Charles the Second, and the last member of parliament who, according to the ancient mode, took wages from his constituents. The Commons have, since then, much changed their pay-masters. —See the State Poems for some rude but spirited effusions of Andrew Marvell.

The following artless speech of Sir Francis Winnington, in the reign of Charles the Second, will amuse those who are fully aware of the perfection we have since attained in that system of government whose humble beginnings so much astonished the worthy baronet. “I did observe (says he) that all those who had pensions, and most of those who had offices, voted all of a side, as they were directed by some great officer, exactly as if their business in this House had been to preserve their pensions and offices, and not to make laws for the good of them who sent them here.”—He alludes to that parliament which was called, par excellence, the Pensionary Parliament.

According to Xenophon, the chief circumstance which recommended these creatures to the service of Eastern princes was the ignominious station they held in society, and the probability of their being, upon this account, more devoted to the will and caprice of a master, from whose notice alone they derived consideration, and in whose favour they might seek refuge from the general contempt of mankind.—Αδοξοι οντες οι ευνουχοι παρα τοις αλλοις ανθρωποις και δια τουτο δεσποτου επικουρου προσδεονται.—But I doubt whether even an Eastern prince would have chosen an entire administration upon this principle.

“And in the cup an Union shall be thrown.” Hamlet.

Among the many measures, which, since the Revolution, have contributed to increase the influence of the Throne, and to feed up this “Aaron's serpent” of the constitution to its present healthy and respectable magnitude, there have been few more nutritive than the Scotch and Irish Unions. Sir John Packer said, in a debate upon the former question, that “he would submit it to the House, whether men who had basely betrayed their trust, by giving up their independent constitution, were fit to be admitted into the English House of Commons.” But Sir John would have known, if he had not been out of place at the time, that the pliancy of such materials was not among the least of their recommendations. Indeed, the promoters of the Scotch Union were by no means disappointed in the leading object of their measure, for the triumphant majorities of the court-party in parliament may be dated from the admission of the 45 and the 16. Once or twice, upon the alteration of their law of treason and the imposition of the malt-tax (measures which were in direct violation of the Act of Union), these worthy North Britons arrayed themselves in opposition to the court; but finding this effort for their country unavailing, they prudently determined to think thenceforward of themselves, and few men have ever kept to a laudable resolution more firmly. The effect of Irish representation on the liberties of England will be no less perceptible and permanent.

From Aratus (v. 715.) a poet who wrote upon astronomy, though, as Cicero assures us, he knew nothing whatever about the subject: just as the great Harvey wrote “De Generatione,” though he had as little to do with the matter as my Lord Viscount C.

The magician's shield in Ariosto:—

Cant. 2.

This is also, as it appears, the moral code of Napoleon.

The following prophetic remarks occur in a letter written by Sir Robert Talbot, who attended the Duke of Bedford to Paris in 1762. Talking of states which have grown powerful in commerce, he says, “According to the nature and common course of things, there is a confederacy against them, and consequently in the same proportion as they increase in riches, they approach to destruction. The address of our King William, in making all Europe take the alarm at France, has brought that country before us near that inevitable period. We must necessarily have our turn, and Great Britain will attain it as soon as France shall have a declaimer with organs as proper for that political purpose as were those of our William the Third ------ Without doubt, my Lord, Great Britain must lower her flight. Europe will remind us of the balance of commerce, as she has reminded France of the balance of power. The address of our statesmen will immortalise them by contriving for us a descent which shall not be a fall, by making us rather resemble Holland than Carthage and Venice.” —Letters on the French Nation.

The king-deposing doctrine, notwithstanding its many mischievous absurdities, was of no little service to the cause of political liberty, by inculcating the right of resistance to tyrants, and asserting the will of the people to be the only true fountain of power. Bellarmine, the most violent of the advocates for papal authority, was one of the first to maintain (De Pontif. lib. i. cap. 7.), “that kings have not their authority or office immediately from God nor his law, but only from the law of nations;” and in King James's “Defence of the Rights of Kings against Cardinal Perron,” we find his Majesty expressing strong indignation against the Cardinal for having asserted “that to the deposing of a king the consent of the people must be obtained”—“for by these words (says James) the people are exalted above the king, and made the judges of the king's deposing,” p. 424.—Even in Mariana's celebrated book, where the nonsense of bigotry does not interfere, there may be found many liberal and enlightened views of the principles of government, of the restraints which should be imposed upon royal power, of the subordination of the Throne to the interests of the people, &c. &c. (De Rege et Regis Institutione. See particularly lib. i. cap. 6. 8. and 9.)—It is rather remarkable, too, that England should be indebted to another Jesuit for the earliest defence of that principle upon which the Revolution was founded, namely, the right of the people to change the succession.—(See Doleman's “Conferences,” written in support of the title of the Infanta of Spain against that of James I.)—When Englishmen, therefore, say that Popery is the religion of slavery, they should not only recollect that their own boasted constitution is the work and bequest of popish ancestors; they should not only remember the laws of Edward III., “under whom (says Bolingbroke) the constitution of our parliaments, and the whole form of our government, became reduced into better form;” but they should know that even the errors charged on Popery have leaned to the cause of liberty, and that Papists were the first promulgators of the doctrines which led to the Revolution.—In general, however, the political principles of the Roman Catholics have been described as happened to suit the temporary convenience of their oppressors, and have been represented alternately as slavish or refractory, according as a pretext for tormenting them was wanting. The same inconsistency has marked every other imputation against them. They are charged with laxity in the observance of oaths, though an oath has been found sufficient to shut them out from all worldly advantages. If they reject certain decisions of their church, they are said to be sceptics and bad Christians; if they admit those very decisions, they are branded as bigots and bad subjects. We are told that confidence and kindness will make them enemies to the government, though we know that exclusion and injuries have hardly prevented them from being its friends. In short, nothing can better illustrate the misery of those shifts and evasions by which a long course of cowardly injustice must be supported, than the whole history of Great Britain's conduct towards the Catholic part of her empire.

The “Sella Stercoraria” of the popes.—The Right Honourable and learned Doctor will find an engraving of this chair in Spanheim's “Disquisitio Historica de Papâ Fœminâ” (p. 118.); and I recommend it as a model for the fashion of that seat which the Doctor is about to take in the privy-council of Ireland.

When Innocent X. was entreated to decide the controversy between the Jesuits and the Jansenists, he answered, that “he had been bred a lawyer, and had therefore nothing to do with divinity.”—It were to be wished that some of our English pettifoggers knew their own fit element as well as Pope Innocent X.

Not the C---md---n who speaks thus of Ireland:— “To wind up all, whether we regard the fruitfulness of the soil, the advantage of the sea, with so many commodious havens, or the natives themselves, who are warlike, ingenious, handsome, and well-complexioned, soft-skinned and very nimble, by reason of the pliantness of their muscles, this Island is in many respects so happy, that Giraldus might very well say, ‘Nature had regarded with more favourable eyes than ordinary this Kingdom of Zephyr.’”

The example of toleration, which Bonaparte has held forth, will, I fear, produce no other effect than that of determining the British government to persist, from the very spirit of opposition, in their own old system of intolerance and injustice; just as the Siamese blacken their teeth, “because,” as they say, “the devil has white ones.”

See l'Histoire Naturelle et Polit. du Royaume de Siam, &c.

One of the unhappy results of the controversy between Protestants and Catholics, is the mutual exposure which their criminations and recriminations have produced. In vain do the Protestants charge the Papists with closing the door of salvation upon others, while many of their own writings and articles breathe the same uncharitable spirit. No canon of Constance or Lateran ever damned heretics more effectually than the eighth of the Thirty-nine Articles consigns to perdition every single member of the Greek church; and I doubt whether a more sweeping clause of damnation was ever proposed in the most bigoted council, than that which the Calvinistic theory of predestination in the seventeenth of these Articles exhibits. It is true that no liberal Protestant avows such exclusive opinions; that every honest clergyman must feel a pang while he subscribes to them; that some even assert the Athanasian Creed to be the forgery of one Vigilius Tapsensis, in the beginning of the sixth century, and that eminent divines, like Jortin, have not hesitated to say, “There are propositions contained in our Liturgy and Articles, which no man of common sense amongst us believes.” But while all this is freely conceded to Protestants; while nobody doubts their sincerity, when they declare that their articles are not essentials of faith, but a collection of opinions which have been promulgated by fallible men, and from many of which they feel themselves justified in dissenting,— while so much liberty of retractation is allowed to Protestants upon their own declared and subscribed Articles of religion, is it not strange that a similar indulgence should be so obstinately refused to the Catholics, upon tenets which their church has uniformly resisted and condemned, in every country where it has independently flourished? When the Catholics say, “The Decree of the Council of Lateran, which you object to us, has no claim whatever upon either our faith or our reason; it did not even profess to contain any doctrinal decision, but was merely a judicial proceeding of that assembly; and it would be as fair for us to impute a wife-killing doctrine to the Protestants, because their first pope, Henry VIII., was sanctioned in an indulgence of that propensity, as for you to conclude that we have inherited a king-deposing taste from the acts of the Council of Lateran, or the secular pretensions of our popes. With respect, too, to the Decree of the Council of Constance, upon the strength of which you accuse us of breaking faith with heretics, we do not hesitate to pronounce that Decree a calumnious forgery, a forgery, too, so obvious and ill-fabricated, that none but our enemies have ever ventured to give it the slightest credit for authenticity.”—When the Catholics make these declarations (and they are almost weary with making them), when they show, too, by their conduct, that these declarations are sincere, and that their faith and morals are no more regulated by the absurd decrees of old councils and popes, than their science is influenced by the papal anathema against that Irishman who first found out the Antipodes,—is it not strange that so many still wilfully distrust what every good man is so much interested in believing? That so many should prefer the dark-lantern of the 13th century to the sunshine of intellect which has since overspread the world, and that every dabbler in theology, from Mr. Le Mesurier down to the Chancellor of the Exchequer, should dare to oppose the rubbish of Constance and Lateran to the bright and triumphant progress of justice, generosity, and truth?

Strictures on the Articles, Subscriptions, &c.

Virgilius, surnamed Solivagus, a native of Ireland, who maintained, in the 8th century, the doctrine of the Antipodes, and was anathematised accordingly by the Pope. John Scotus Erigena, another Irishman, was the first that ever wrote against transubstantiation.

In a singular work, written by one Franciscus Collius, “upon the Souls of the Pagans,” the author discusses, with much coolness and erudition, all the probable chances of salvation upon which a heathen philosopher might calculate. Consigning to perdition without much difficulty Plato, Socrates, &c. the only sage at whose fate he seems to hesitate is Pythagoras, in consideration of his golden thigh, and the many miracles which he performed. But, having balanced a little his claims, and finding reason to father all these miracles on the devil, he at length, in the twenty-fifth chapter, decides upon damning him also. (De Animabus Paganorum, lib. iv. cap. 20. and 25.)—The poet Dante compromises the matter with the Pagans, and gives them a neutral territory or limbo of their own, where their employment, it must be owned, is not very enviable—“Senza speme vivemo in desio.”—Cant. iv.— Among the numerous errors imputed to Origen, he is accused of having denied the eternity of future punishment; and, if he never advanced a more irrational doctrine, we may venture, I think, to forgive him. He went so far, however, as to include the devil himself in the general hell-delivery which he supposed would one day or other take place, and in this St. Augustin thinks him rather too merciful—“Miserecordior profecto fuit Origenes, qui et ipsum diabolum,” &c. (De Civitat. Dei. lib. xxi. cap. 17.)—According to St. Jerom, it was Origen's opinion, that “the devil himself, after a certain time, will be as well off as the angel Gabriel”—“Id ipsum fore Gabrielem quod diabolum.” (See his Epistle to Pammachius.) But Halloix, in his Defence of Origen, denies strongly that this learned father had any such misplaced tenderness for the devil.

Mr. Fox, in his Speech on the Repeal of the Test Act (1790), thus condemns the intermixture of religion wih the political constitution of a state:—“What purpose (he asks) can it serve, except the baleful purpose of communicating and receiving contamination? Under such an alliance corruption must alight upon the one, and slavery overwhelm the other.”

Locke, too, says of the connection between church and state, “The boundaries on both sides are fixed and immoveable. He jumbles heaven and earth together, the things most remote and opposite, who mixes these two societies, which are in their original, end, business, and in every thing, perfectly distinct and infinitely different from each other.” —First Letter on Toleration.

The corruptions introduced into Christianity may be dated from the period of its establishment under Constantine, nor could all the splendour which it then acquired atone for the peace and purity which it lost.

There has been, after all, quite as much intolerance among Protestants as among Papists. According to the hackneyed quotation—

Even the great champion of the Reformation, Melanchthon, whom Jortin calls “a divine of much mildness and good-nature,” thus expresses his approbation of the burning of Servetus: “Legi (he says to Bullinger) quæ de Serveti blasphemiis respondistis, et pietatem ac judicia vestra probo. Judico etiam senatum Genevensem rectè fecisse, quod hominem pertinacem et non omissurum blasphemias sustulit; ac miratus sum esse qui severitatem illam improbent.”—I have great pleasure in contrasting with these “mild and good-natured” sentiments the following words of the Papist Baluze, in addressing his friend Conringius: “Interim amemus, mî Conringi, et tametsi diversas opiniones tuemur in causâ religionis, moribus tamen diversi non simus, qui eadem literarum studia sectamur.” —Herman. Conring. Epistol. par. secund. p. 56.

Hume tells us that the Commons, in the beginning of Charles the First's reign, “attacked Montague, one of the King's chaplains, on account of a moderate book which he had lately composed, and which, to their great disgust, saved virtuous Catholics, as well as other Christians, from eternal torments.”—In the same manner a complaint was lodged before the Lords of the Council against that excellent writer Hooker, for having, in a Sermon against Popery, attempted to save many of his Popish ancestors for ignorance.—To these examples of Protestant toleration I shall beg leave to oppose the following extract from a letter of old Roger Ascham (the tutor of Queen Elizabeth), which is preserved among the Harrington Papers, and was written in 1566, to the Earl of Leicester, complaining of the Archbishop Young, who had taken away his prebend in the church of York: “Master Bourne did never grieve me half so moche in offering me wrong, as Mr. Dudley and the Byshopp of York doe, in taking away my right. No byshopp in Q. Mary's time would have so dealt with me; not Mr. Bourne hymself, when Winchester lived, durst have so dealt with me. For suche good estimation in those dayes even the learnedst and wysest men, as Gardener and Cardinal Poole, made of my poore service, that although they knewe perfectly that in religion, both by open wrytinge and pryvie talke, I was contrarye unto them; yea, when Sir Francis Englefield by name did note me speciallye at the councill-board, Gardener would not suffer me to be called thither, nor touched ellswheare, saiinge suche words of me in a lettre, as, though lettres cannot, I blushe to write them to your lordshipp. Winchester's good-will stoode not in speaking faire and wishing well, but he did in deede that for me , whereby my wife and children shall live the better when I am gone.” (See Nugæ Antiquæ, vol. i. pp. 98, 99.)— If men who acted thus were bigots, what shall we call Mr. P*rc*v*l?

In Sutcliffe's “Survey of Popery” there occurs the following assertion:—“Papists, that positively hold the heretical and false doctrines of the modern church of Rome, cannot possibly be saved.”—As a contrast to this and other specimens of Protestant liberality, which it would be much more easy than pleasant to collect, I refer my reader to the Declaration of Le Père Courayer;—doubting not that, while he reads the sentiments of this pious man upon toleration, he will feel inclined to exclaim with Belsham, “Blush, ye Protestant bigots! and be confounded at the comparison of your own wretched and malignant prejudices with the generous and enlarged ideas, the noble and animated language of this Popish priest.”— Essays, xxvii. p. 86.

Sir John Bourne, Principal Secretary of State to Queen Mary.

By Gardener's favour Ascham long held his fellowship, though not resident.

“La tolérance est la chose du monde la plus propre à ramener le siècle d'or, et à faire un concert et une harmonie de plusieurs voix et instruments de différents tons et notes, aussi agréable pour le moins que l'uniformité d'une seule voix.” Bayle, Commentaire Philosophique, &c. part ii. chap. vi.— Both Bayle and Locke would have treated the subject of Toleration in a manner much more worthy of themselves and of the cause, if they had written in an age less distracted by religious prejudices.

“The particular bulk, number, figure, and motion of the parts of fire or snow are really in them, whether any one perceive them or not, and therefore they may be called real qualities, because they really exist in those bodies; but light, heat, whiteness, or coldness, are no more really in them than sickness or pain is in manna. Take away the sensation of them; let not the eye see light or colours, nor the ears hear sounds; let the palate not taste, nor the nose smell, and all colours, tastes, odours, and sounds, as they are such particular ideas, vanish and cease.” —Locke, book ii. chap. 8.

Bishop Berkeley, it is well known, extended this doctrine even to primary qualities, and supposed that matter itself has but an ideal existence. But, how are we to apply his theory to that period which preceded the formation of man, when our system of sensible things was produced, and the sun shone, and the waters flowed, without any sentient being to witness them? The spectator, whom Whiston supplies, will scarcely solve the difficulty: “To speak my mind freely,” says he, “I believe that the Messias was there actually present.” —See Whiston, of the Mosaic Creation.

Boetius employs this argument of the Sceptics among his consolatory reflections upon the emptiness of fame. “Quid quod diversarum gentium mores inter se atque instituta discordant, ut quod apud alios laude, apud alios supplicio dignum judicetur?”—Lib. ii. prosa 7. Many amusing instances of diversity, in the tastes, manners, and morals of different nations, may be found throughout the works of that amusing Sceptic Le Mothe le Vayer.—See his Opuscule Sceptique, his Treatise “De la Secte Sceptique,” and, above all, those Dialogues, not to be found in his works, which he published under the name of Horatius Tubero.—The chief objection to these writings of Le Vayer (and it is a blemish which may be felt also in the Esprit des Loix), is the suspicious obscurity of the sources from whence he frequently draws his instances, and the indiscriminate use made by him of the lowest populace of the library,—those lying travellers and wonder-mongers, of whom Shaftesbury, in his Advice to an Author, complains, as having tended in his own time to the diffusion of a very shallow and vicious sort of scepticism.— Vol. i. p. 352. The Pyrrhonism of Le Vayer, however, is of the most innocent and playful kind; and Villemandy, the author of Scepticismus Debellatus, exempts him specially in the declaration of war which he denounces against the other armed neutrals of the sect, in consideration of the orthodox limits within which he confines his incredulity.

This was the creed also of those modern Epicureans, whom Ninon de l'Enclos collected around her in the Rue des Tournelles, and whose object seems to have been to decry the faculty of reason, as tending only to embarrass our wholesome use of pleasures, without enabling us, in any degree, to avoid their abuse. Madame des Houlières, the fair pupil of Des Barreaux in the arts of poetry and gallantry, has devoted most of her verses to this laudable purpose, and is even such a determined foe to reason, that, in one of her pastorals, she congratulates her sheep on the want of it. St. Evremont speaks thus upon the subject:—

See, among the fragments of Petronius, those verses beginning “Fallunt nos oculi,” &c. The most sceptical of the ancient poets was Euripides; and it would, I think, puzzle the whole school of Pyrrho to produce a doubt more startling than the following:—

Socrates and Plato were the grand sources of ancient scepticism. According to Cicero (de Orator. lib. iii.), they supplied Arcesilas with the doctrines of the Middle Academy; and how closely these resembled the tenets of the Sceptics, may be seen even in Sextus Empiricus (lib. i. cap. 33.), who, with all his distinctions, can scarcely prove any difference. It appears strange that Epicurus should have been a dogmatist; and his natural temper would most probably have led him to the repose of scepticism, had not the Stoics, by their violent opposition to his doctrines, compelled him to be as obstinate as themselves. Plutarch, indeed, in reporting some of his opinions, represents him as having delivered them with considerable hesitation.—Επικουρος ουδεν απογινωσκει τουτων, εχομενος του ενδεχομενου.—De Placit. Philosoph. lib. ii. cap. 13. See also the 21st and 22d chapters. But that the leading characteristics of the sect were self-sufficiency and dogmatism, appears from what Cicero says of Velleius, De Natur. Deor.—“Tum Velleius, fidenter sanè, ut solent isti, nihil tam verens quam ne dubitare aliquâ de re videretur.”

Acts, chap. xix. “For a certain man named Demetrius, a silversmith, which made silver shrines for Diana, brought no small gain unto the craftsmen.”

“Those two thieves,” says Ralph, “between whom the nation is crucified.” —Use and Abuse of Parliaments.

The agitation of the ship is one of the chief difficulties which impede the discovery of the longitude at sea; and the tumult and hurry of life are equally unfavourable to that calm level of mind which is necessary to an inquirer after truth.

In the mean time, our modest Sceptic, in the absence of truth, contents himself with probabilities, resembling in this respect those suitors of Penelope, who, on finding that they could not possess the mistress herself, very wisely resolved to put up with her maids; τη Πηνελοπη πλησιαζειν μη δυναμενοι, ταις ταυτης εμιγνυντο θεραπαιναις. —Plutarch, Περι Παιδων Αγωγης.

See a curious work, entitled “Reflections upon Learning,” written on the plan of Agrippa's “De Vanitate Scientiarum,” but much more honestly and skilfully executed.

This historian of the Irish rebellions has outrun even his predecessor in the same task, Sir John Temple, for whose character with respect to veracity the reader may consult Carte's Collection of Ormond's Original Papers, p. 207. See also Dr. Nalson's account of him, in the introduction to the second volume of his Historic. Collect.

He defends Strafford's conduct as “innocent and even laudable.” In the same spirit, speaking of the arbitrary sentences of the Star Chamber, he says,—“The severity of the Star Chamber, which was generally ascribed to Laud's passionate disposition, was perhaps, in itself, somewhat blameable.”

That flexibility of temper and opinion, which the habits of scepticism are so calculated to produce, are thus pleaded for by Mr. Fox, in the very sketch of Monmouth to which I allude; and this part of the picture the historian may be thought to have drawn from himself. “One of the most conspicuous features in his character seems to have been a remarkable, and, as some think, a culpable degree of flexibility. That such a disposition is preferable to its opposite extreme will be admitted by all, who think that modesty, even in excess, is more nearly allied to wisdom than conceit and self-sufficiency. He who has attentively considered the political, or indeed the general concerns of life, may possibly go still further, and may rank a willingness to be convinced, or, in some cases, even without conviction, to concede our own opinion to that of other men, among the principal ingredients in the composition of practical wisdom.”—It is right to observe, however, that the Sceptic's readiness of concession arises rather from uncertainty than conviction, more from a suspicion that his own opinion may be wrong, than from any persuasion that the opinion of his adversary is right. “It may be so,” was the courteous and sceptical formula, with which the Dutch were accustomed to reply to the statements of ambassadors. See Lloyd's State Worthies, art. Sir Thomas Wyat.

Descartes, who is considered as the parent of modern scepticism, says, that there is nothing in the whole range of philosophy which does not admit of two opposite opinions, and which is not involved in doubt and uncertainty. “In Philosophia nihil adhuc reperiri, de quo non in utramque partem disputatur, hoc est, quod non sit incertum et dubium.” Gassendi is likewise to be added to the list of modern Sceptics, and Wedderkopff, in his Dissertation “De Scepticismo profano et sacro” (Argentorat. 1666), has denounced Erasmus also as a follower of Pyrrho, for his opinions upon the Trinity, and some other subjects. To these if we add the names of Bayle, Mallebranche, Dryden, Locke, &c. &c., I think there is no one who need be ashamed of doubting in such company.

See this gentleman's Academic Questions.

Papias lived about the time of the apostles, and is supposed to have given birth to the heresy of the Chiliastæ, whose heaven was by no means of a spiritual nature, but rather an anticipation of the Prophet of Hera's elysium. See Eusebius, Hist. Ecclesiast. lib. iii. cap. 33., and Hieronym. de Scriptor. Ecclesiast.—From all I can find in these authors concerning Papias, it seems hardly fair to impute to him those gross imaginations in which the believers of the sensual millennium indulged.

King, in his Morsels of Criticism, vol. i., supposes the sun to be the receptacle of blessed spirits.

The Indians call hell “the House of Smoke.” See Picart upon the Religion of the Banians. The reader who is curious about infernal matters, may be edified by consulting Rusca de Inferno, particularly lib. ii. cap. 7, 8., where he will find the precise sort of fire ascertained in which wicked spirits are to be burned hereafter.

“Chère Sceptique, douce pâture de mon ame, et l'unique port de salut à un esprit qui aime le repos!” —La Mothe le Vayer.

This young Lady, who is a Roman Catholic, had lately made a present of some beautiful Ponies to the Pr*nc*ss.

Mr. Addington, so nicknamed.

Alluding to a tax lately laid upon leather.

The question whether a Veto was to be allowed to the Crown in the appointment of Irish Catholic Bishops was, at this time, very generally and actively agitated.

For an account of this extraordinary work of Mr. Leckie, see the Edinburgh Review, vol. xx.

“The truth indeed seems to be, that having lived so long abroad as evidently to have lost, in a great degree, the use of his native language, Mr. Leckie has gradually come not only to speak, but to feel, like a foreigner.” —Edinburgh Review.

The learned Colonel must allude here to a description of the Mysterious Isle, in the History of Abdalla, Son of Hanif, where such inversions of the order of nature are said to have taken place.—“A score of old women and the same number of old men played here and there in the court, some at chuck-farthing, others at tip-cat or at cockles.”— And again, “There is nothing, believe me, more engaging than those lovely wrinkles,” &c. &c.—See Tales of the East, vol. iii. pp. 607, 608.

This letter, as the reader will perceive, was written the day after a dinner given by the M*rq---s of H---d---t.

Colonel M'Mahon.

This letter, which contained some very heavy enclosures, seems to have been sent to London by a private hand, and then put into the Twopenny Post-Office, to save trouble. See the Appendix.

In sending this sheet to the Press, however, I learn that the “muzzle” has been taken off, and the Right Hon. Doctor again let loose!

A bad name for poetry; but D---gen---n is still worse.— As Prudentius says upon a very different subject—

Pers. sat. 2.

I have taken the trouble of examining the Doctor's reference here, and find him, for once, correct. The following are the words of his indignant referee Gallæus—“Asserere non veremur sacrum baptismum a Papistis profanari, et sputi usum in peccatorum expiatione a Paganis non a Christianis manâsse.”

Spanheim attributes the unanimity, with which Joan was elected, to that innate and irresistible charm, by which her sex, though latent, operated upon the instinct of the Cardinals— “Non vi aliquâ, sed concorditer, omnium in se converso desiderio, quæ sunt blandientis sexus artes, latentes in hâc quanquam!”

See Mr. Murray's Advertisement about the Mail-Coach copies of Rokeby.

Alluding, I suppose, to the Latin Advertisement of a Lusus Naturæ in the Newspapers lately.

“C'est un honnête homme,” said a Turkish governor of De Ruyter; “c'est grand dommage qu'il soit Chrétien.”.

Sunnites and Shiites are the two leading sects into which the Mahometan world is divided; and they have gone on cursing and persecuting each other, without any intermission, for about eleven hundred years. The Sunni is the established sect in Turkey, and the Shia in Persia; and the differences between them turn chiefly upon those important points, which our pious friend Abdallah, in the true spirit of Shiite Ascendency, reprobates in this Letter.

“Les Sunnites, qui étoient comme les Catholiques de Musulmanisme.” —D' Herbelot.

“In contradistinction to the Sounis, who in their prayers cross their hands on the lower part of the breast, the Schiahs drop their arms in straight lines; and as the Sounis, at certain periods of the prayer, press their foreheads on the ground or carpet, the Schiahs,” &c. &c. —Forster's Voyage.

“Les Tures ne détestent pas Ali réciproquement; au contraire, ils le reconnoissent,” &c. &c. —Chardin.

“The Shiites wear green slippers, which the Sunnites consider as a great abomination.” —Mariti.

For these points of difference, as well as for the Chapter of the Blanket, I must refer the reader (not having the book by me) to Picart's Account of the Mahometan Sects.

This will appear strange to an English reader, but it is literally translated from Abdallah's Persian, and the curious bird to which he alludes is the Juftak, of which I find the following account in Richardson:—“A sort of bird, that is said to have but one wing; on the opposite side to which the male has a hook and the female a ring, so that, when they fly, they are fastened together.”

I have made many inquiries about this Persian gentleman, but cannot satisfactorily ascertain who he is. From his notions of Religious Liberty, however, I conclude that he is an importation of Ministers; and he has arrived just in time to assist the P---e and Mr. L---ck---e in their new Oriental Plan of Reform.—See the second of these Letters.— How Abdallah's epistle to Ispahan found its way into the Twopenny Post-Bag is more than I can pretend to account for.

From motives of delicacy, and, indeed, of fellow-feeling, I suppress the name of the Author, whose rejected manuscript was inclosed in this letter.—See the Appendix.

Sir John Carr, the author of “Tours in Ireland, Holland, Sweden,” &c. &c.

This alludes, I believe, to a curious correspondence, which is said to have passed lately between Alb*n*a, Countess of B*ck---gh*ms---e, and a certain ingenious Parodist.

Paternoster Row.

There was, in like manner, a mysterious Book, in the 16th Century, which employed all the anxious curiosity of the Learned of that time. Every one spoke of it; many wrote against it; though it does not appear that any body had ever seen it; and Grotius is of opinion that no such Book ever existed. It was entitled “Liber de tribus impostoribus.” (See Morhof. Cap. de Libris damnatis.)—Our more modern mystery of “the Book” resembles this in many particulars; and, if the number of Lawyers employed in drawing it up be stated correctly, a slight alteration of the title into “à tribus impostoribus” would produce a coincidence altogether very remarkable.

The same Chamber, doubtless, that was prepared for the reception of the Bourbons at the first Grand Fête, and which was ornamented (all “for the Deliverance of Europe”) with fleurs-de-lys.

“To enable the individual, who holds the office of Chancellor, to maintain it in becoming splendour.” (A loud laugh.) —Lord Castlereagh's Speech upon the Vice-Chancellor's Bill.

Mr. Leigh Hunt and his brother.

This Letter enclosed a Card for the Grand Fête on the 5th of February.

An amateur actor of much risible renown.

Horat.

The crest of Mr. C---tes, the very amusing amateur tragedian here alluded to, was a cock; and most profusely were his liveries, harness, &c., covered with this ornament.

To those, who neither go to balls nor read the Morning Post, it may be necessary to mention, that the floors of Ball-rooms, in general, are chalked, for safety and for ornament, with various fanciful devices.

A foreign artist much patronized by the Prince Regent.

The name of a popular country-dance.

“C*rl---t*n H---e will exhibit a complete fac-simile, in respect to interior ornament, to what it did at the last Fête. The same splendid draperies,” &c. &c. —Morning Post.

Mr. Walsh Porter, to whose taste was left the furnishing of the rooms of Carlton House.

The salt-cellars on the Pr---e's own table were in the form of an Ass with panniers.

Letter from his Royal Highness the Prince Regent to the Duke of York, Feb. 13. 1812.

“I think it hardly necessary to call your recollection to the recent circumstances under which I assumed the authority delegated to me by Parliament.” —Prince's Letter.

“My sense of duty to our Royal father solely decided that choice.” —Ibid.

The antique shield of Martinus Scriblerus, which, upon scouring, turned out to be only an old sconce.

“I waved any personal gratification, in order that his Majesty might resume, on his restoration to health, every power and prerogative,” &c. —Prince's Letter.

“And I have the satisfaction of knowing that such was the opinion of persons for whose judgment,” &c. &c. —Ibid.

The letter-writer's favourite luncheon.

“I certainly am the last person in the kingdom to whom it can be permitted to despair of our royal father's recovery.” —Prince's Letter.

“A new era is now arrived, and I cannot but reflect with satisfaction,” &c. —Ibid.

“I have no predilections to indulge,—no resentments to gratify.” —Prince's Letter.

“I cannot conclude without expressing the gratification I should feel if some of those persons with whom the early habits of my public life were formed would strengthen my hands, and constitute a part of my government.” —Prince's Letter.

“You are authorized to communicate these sentiments to Lord Grey, who, I have no doubt, will make them known to Lord Grenville.” —Prince's Letter.

“I shall send a copy of this letter immediately to Mr. Perceval.” —Prince's Letter.

See Prior's poem, entitled “The Dove.”

P*rc*v*l.

In allusion to “the Book” which created such a sensation at that period.

The incog. vehicle of the Pr---ce.

Baron Geramb, the rival of his R. H. in whiskers.

England is not the only country where merit of this kind is noticed and rewarded. “I remember,” says Tavernier, “to have seen one of the King of Persia's porters, whose mustaches were so long that he could tie them behind his neck, for which reason he had a double pension.”

A rhetorical figure used by Lord C*stl*r---gh, in one of his speeches.

Colonel M---cm---h---n.

One of those antediluvian Princes, with whom Manetho and Whiston seem so intimately acquainted. If we had the Memoirs of Thoth, from which Manetho compiled his History, we should find, I dare say, that Crack was only a Regent, and that he, perhaps, succeeded Typhon, who (as Whiston says) was the last King of the Antediluvian Dynasty.

Edward Byrne, the head of the Delegates of the Irish Catholics.

The ancients, in like manner, crowned their Lares, or Household Gods. See Juvenal, Sat. 9. v. 138.—Plutarch, too, tells us that Household Gods were then, as they are now, “much given to War and penal Statutes.”—εριννυωδεις και ποινιμους δαιμονας.

Certain tinsel imitations of the Shamrock which are distributed by the Servants of C---n House every Patrick's Day.

The sobriquet given to Lord Sidmouth.

This and the following are extracted from a Work, which may, some time or other, meet the eye of the Public—entitled “Odes of Horace, done into English by several Persons of Fashion.”

Charles Fox.

The Noble Translator had, at first, laid the scene of these imagined dangers of his Man of Conscience among the Papists of Spain, and had translated the words “quæ loca fabulosus lambit Hydaspes” thus—“The fabling Spaniard licks the French;” but, recollecting that it is our interest just now to be respectful to Spanish Catholics (though there is certainly no earthly reason for our being even commonly civil to Irish ones), he altered the passage as it stands at present.

I cannot help calling the reader's attention to the peculiar ingenuity with which these lines are paraphrased. Not to mention the happy conversion of the Wolf into a Papist, (seeing that Romulus was suckled by a wolf, that Rome was founded by Romulus, and that the Pope has always reigned at Rome,) there is something particularly neat in supposing “ultra terminum” to mean vacation-time; and then the modest consciousness with which the Noble and Learned Translator has avoided touching upon the words “curis expeditis,” (or, as it has been otherwise read, “causis expeditis,”) and the felicitous idea of his being “inermis” when “without his wig,” are altogether the most delectable specimens of paraphrase in our language.

I must here remark, that the said Dick M*rt*n being a very good fellow, it was not at all fair to make a “malus Jupiter” of him.

There cannot be imagined a more happy illustration of the inseparability of Church and State, and their (what is called) “standing and falling together,” than this ancient apologue of Jack and Jill. Jack, of course, represents the State in this ingenious little Allegory.

That model of Princes, the Emperor Commodus, was particularly luxurious in the dressing and ornamenting of his hair. His conscience, however, would not suffer him to trust himself with a barber, and he used, accordingly, to burn off his beard.—“timore tonsoris,” says Lampridius. (Hist. August. Scriptor.) The dissolute Ælius Verus, too, was equally attentive to the decoration of his wig. (See Jul. Capitolin.)— Indeed, this was not the only princely trait in the character of Verus, as he had likewise a most hearty and dignified contempt for his Wife.—See his insulting answer to her in Spartianus.

In allusion to Lord Ell---nb---gh.

Lord C*stl*r---gh.

He had recently been appointed Chancellor of the Exchequer.

An allusion to Lord Eld---n's lachrymose tendencies.

“Of the taxes proposed by Mr. Vansittart, that principally opposed in Parliament was the additional duty on leather.” Ann. Register.

The character given to the Spanish soldier, in Sir John Murray's memorable despatch.

The literal closeness of the version here cannot but be admired. The Translator has added a long, erudite, and flowery note upon Roses, of which I can merely give a specimen at present. In the first place, he ransacks the Rosarium Politicum of the Persian poet Sadi, with the hope of finding some Political Roses, to match the gentleman in the text— but in vain: he then tells us that Cicero accused Verres of reposing upon a cushion “Melitensi rosâ fartum,” which, from the odd mixture of words, he supposes to be a kind of Irish Bed of Roses, like Lord Castlereagh's. The learned Clerk next favours us with some remarks upon a well-known punning epitaph on fair Rosamond, and expresses a most loyal hope, that, if “Rosa munda” mean “A Rose with clean hands” it may be found applicable to the Right Honourable Rose in question. He then dwells at some length upon the “Rosa aurea,” which, though descriptive, in one sense, of the old Treasury Statesman, yet, as being consecrated and worn by the Pope, must, of course, not be brought into the same atmosphere with him. Lastly, in reference to the words “old Rose,” he winds up with the pathetic lamentation of the Poet “consenuisse Rosas.” The whole note indeed shows a knowledge of Roses, that is quite edifying.

Brien Boromhe, the great monarch of Ireland, who was killed at the battle of Clontarf, in the beginning of the 11th century, after having defeated the Danes in twenty-five engagements.

Munster.

The palace of Brien.

This alludes to an interesting circumstance related of the Dalgais, the favourite troops of Brien, when they were interrupted in their return from the battle of Clontarf, by Fitzpatrick, prince of Ossory. The wounded men entreated that they might be allowed to fight with the rest.—Let stakes (they said) be stuck in the ground, and suffer each of us, tied to and supported by one of these stakes, to be placed in his rank by the side of a sound man.” “Between seven and eight hundred wounded men (adds O'Halloran) pale, emaciated, and supported in this manner, appeared mixed with the foremost of the troops;—never was such another sight exhibited.”—History of Ireland, book xii. chap. i.

Solis Fons, near the Temple of Ammon.

“In the twenty-eighth year of the reign of Henry VIII. an Act was made respecting the habits, and dress in general, of the Irish, whereby all persons were restrained from being shorn or shaven above the ears, or from wearing Glibbes, or Coulins (long locks), on their heads, or hair on their upper lip, called Crommeal. On this occasion a song was written by one of our bards, in which an Irish virgin is made to give the preference to her dear Coulin (or the youth with the flowing locks) to all strangers (by which the English were meant), or those who wore their habits. Of this song, the air alone has reached us, and is universally admired.”—Walker's Historical Memoirs of Irish Bards, p. 134. Mr. Walker informs us also, that, about the same period, there were some harsh measures taken against the Irish Minstrels.

This ballad is founded upon the following anecdote:— “The people were inspired with such a spirit of honour, virtue, and religion, by the great example of Brien, and by his excellent administration, that, as a proof of it, we are informed that a young lady of great beauty, adorned with jewels and a costly dress, undertook a journey alone, from one end of the kingdom to the other, with a wand only in her hand, at the top of which was a ring of exceeding great value; and such an impression had the laws and government of this Monarch made on the minds of all the people, that no attempt was made upon her honour, nor was she robbed of her clothes or jewels.” —Warner's History of Ireland, vol. i. book x.

“The Meeting of the Waters” forms a part of that beautiful scenery which lies between Rathdrum and Arklow, in the county of Wicklow, and these lines were suggested by a visit to this romantic spot, in the summer of the year 1807.

The rivers Avon and Avoca.

“In every house was one or two harps, free to all travellers, who were the more caressed, the more they excelled in music.” —O'Halloran.

I have endeavoured here, without losing that Irish character, which it is my object to preserve throughout this work, to allude to the sad and ominous fatality, by which England has been deprived of so many great and good men, at a moment when she most requires all the aids of talent and integrity.

This designation, which has been before applied to Lord Nelson, is the title given to a celebrated Irish Hero, in a Poem by O'Guive, the bard of O'Niel, which is quoted in the “Philosophical Survey of the South of Ireland,” page 433. “Con, of the hundred Fights, sleep in thy grass—grown tomb, and upbraid not our defeats with thy victories.”

Fox, “Romanorum ultimus.”

“This brought on an encounter between Malachi (the Monarch of Ireland in the tenth century) and the Danes, in which Malachi defeated two of their champions, whom he encountered successively, hand to hand, taking a collar of gold from the neck of one, and carrying off the sword of the other, as trophies of his victory.” —Warner's History of Ireland, vol. i. book ix.

“Military orders of knights were very early established in Ireland: long before the birth of Christ we find an hereditary order of Chivalry in Ulster, called Curaidhe na Craiobhe ruadh, or the Knights of the Red Branch, from their chief seat in Emania, adjoining to the palace of the Ulster kings, called Teagh na Craiobhe ruadh, or the Academy of the Red Branch; and contiguous to which was a large hospital, founded for the sick knights and soldiers, called Bronbhearg, or the House of the Sorrowful Soldier.” —O'Halloran's Introduction, &c., part i. chap. 5.

It was an old tradition, in the time of Giraldus, that Lough Neagh had been originally a fountain, by whose sudden overflowing the country was inundated, and a whole region, like the Atlantis of Plato, overwhelmed. He says that the fishermen, in clear weather, used to point out to strangers the tall ecclesiastical towers under the water. Piscatores aquæ illius turres ecclesiasticas, quæ more patriæ arctæ sunt et altæ, necnon et rotundæ, sub undis manifeste sereno tempore conspiciunt, et extraneis transeuntibus, reique causas admirantibus, frequenter ostendunt. —Topogr. Hib. dist. 2. c. 9.

To make this story intelligible in a song would require a much greater number of verses than any one is authorised to inflict upon an audience at once; the reader must therefore be content to learn, in a note, that Fionnuala, the daughter of Lir, was, by some supernatural power, transformed into a swan, and condemned to wander, for many hundred years, over certain lakes and rivers in Ireland, till the coming of Christianity, when the first sound of the mass-bell was to be the signal of her release.—I found this fanciful fiction among some manuscript translations from the Irish, which were begun under the direction of that enlightened friend of Ireland, the late Countess of Moira.

The inextinguishable fire of St. Bridget, at Kildare, which Giraldus mentions:—“Apud Kildariam occurrit Ignis Sanctæ Brigidæ, quem inextinguibilem vocant; non quod extingui non possit, sed quod tam solicite moniales et sanctæ mulieres ignem, suppetente materia, fovent et nutriunt, ut a tempore virginis per tot annorum curricula semper mansit inextinctus.” —Girald. Camb. de Mirabil. Hibern. dist. 2. c. 34.

Mrs. H. Tighe, in her exquisite lines on the lily, has applied this image to a still more important object.