These are the scenes which, under similar circumstances, would take place here, for the congregation want the comforts of religion without fees, and will cheat the clergyman if they can; and the clergyman who means to live, must meet all these artifices with stern And this is the wretched could not get into my carriage with is a scene of clamour and confusion. jelly-springs, or see my two courses every day, without remembering the buggy and the bacon of some poor old Catholic Bishop, ten times as laborious, and with much more, perhaps, of theological learning than myself, often distressed for a few pounds! and burthened with duties utterly dispro-resistance. portioned to his age and strength. I state of the Irish Roman Catholic think, if the extreme comfort of my clergy!-a miserable blot and stain own condition did not extinguish all on the English nation! What a blessfeeling for others, I should sharply ing to this country would a real Bishop commiserate such a Church, and at- be! A man who thought it the first tempt with ardour and perseverance to duty of Christianity to allay the bad apply the proper remedy. Now let us passions of mankind, and to reconcile bring names and well-known scenes contending sects with each other. before the English reader, to give him What peace and happiness such a man a clearer notion of what passes in as the Bishop of London might have Catholic Ireland. The living of St. conferred on the Empire, if, instead George's, Hanover Square, is a bene- of changing black dresses for white fice of about 1500l. per annum, and a dresses, and administering to the good house. It is in the possession of frivolous disputes of foolish zealots, he Dr. Hodgson, who is also Dean of had laboured to abate the hatred of Carlisle, worth, I believe, about 1500l. Protestants for the Roman Catholics, more. A more comfortable existence and had dedicated his powerful undercan hardly be conceived. Dr. Hodg-standing to promote religious peace son is a very worthy, amiable man, and I am very glad he is as rich as he is: but suppose he had no revenues but what he got off his own bat, suppose that instead of tumbling through the skylight, as his income now does, it was procured by Catholic methods. The Doctor tells Mr. Thompson he will not marry him to Miss Simpson under 301; Thompson demurs, and endeavours to beat him down. The Doctor sees Miss Simpson; finds her very pretty thinks Thompson hasty, and after a long and undignified negotiation, the Doctor gets his fee. Soon after this he receives a message from Place, the tailor, to come and anoint him with extreme anction. He repairs to the bed-side, and tells Mr. Place that he will not touch him under a suit of clothes, equal to 107: the family resist, the altercation goes on before the perishing artisan, the price is reduced to 8., and Mr. Place is oiled. On the ensuing Sunday the child of Lord B. is to be christened: the godfathers and godmothers will only give a sovereign each: the Doctor refuses to do it for the money, and the church in the two countries! Scarcely any Bishop is sufficiently a man of the world to deal with fanatics. The way is not to reason with them, but to ask them to dinner. They are armed against logic and remonstrance, but they are puzzled in a labyrinth of wines, disarmed by facilities and concessions, and, introduced to a new world, come away thinking more of hot and cold, and dry and sweet, than of Newman, Keble, and Pusey. So mouldered away Hannibal's army at Capua! So the primitive and perpendicular prig of Puseyism is softened into practical wisdom, and coaxed into common sense! Providence gives us Generals, and Admirals, and Chancellors of the Exchequer ; but I never remember in my time a real Bishop, a grave elderly man, full of Greek, with sound views of the middle voice and preterperfect tense, gentle and kind to his poor clergy, of powerful and commauding eloquence; in Parliament never to be put down when the great interests of mankind were concerned; leaning to the Government when it was right, leaning to the People when they were right; feeling that if the Spirit of God | it. Still, in looking back I see no had called him to that high office, he reason to repent. What I have said was called for no mean purpose, but rather that, seeing clearly, and acting boldly, and intending purely, he might confer lasting benefits upon mankind. We consider the Irish clergy as factious, and as encouraging the bad antiBritish spirit of the people. How can it be otherwise? They live by the people; they have nothing to live upon but the voluntary oblations of the people; and they must fall into the same spirit as the people, or they would be starved to death. No marriage; no mortuary masses; no unctions to the priest who preached against O'Connell! ought to be done, generally has been done, but always twenty or thirty years too late; done, not of course because I have said it, but because it was no longer possible to avoid doing it. Human beings cling to their delicious tyrannies, and to their exquisite nonsense, like a drunkard to his bottle, and go on till death stares them in the face. The monstrous state of the Catholic Church in Ireland will probably remain till some monstrous ruin threatens the very existence of the Empire, and Lambeth and Fulham are cursed by the affrighted people. Give the clergy a maintenance se- I have always compared the Proparate from the will of the people, and testant Church in Ireland (and I believe you will then enable them to oppose my friend Thomas Moore stole the the folly and malness of the people. simile from me) to the institution of The objection to the State provision butchers' shops in all the villages of does not really come from the clergy, our Indian empire. "We will have a but from the agitators and repealers : butchers' shop in every village, and these men see the immense advantage you, Hindoos, shall pay for it. We of carrying the clergy with them in know that many of you do not eat their agitation, and of giving the sanc-meat at all, and that the sight of beef tion of religion to political hatred; they know that the clergy, moving in the same direction with the people, have an immense influence over them; and they are very wisely afraid, not only of losing this co-operating power, but of seeing it, by a state provision, arrayed against them. I am fully convinced that a State payment to the Catholic clergy, by leaving to that laborious and useful body of men the exercise of their free judgment, would be the severest blow that Irish agitation could receive. For advancing these opinions, I have no doubt I shall be assailed by Sacerdos, Vindex, Latimer, Vates, Clericus, Aruspex, and be called atheist, deist, democrat, smuggler, poacher, highwayman, Unitarian, and Edinburgh reviewer! Still, I am in the right, -and what I say, requires excuse for being trite and obvious, not for being mischievous and paradoxical. I write for three reasons: first, because I really wish to do good; secondly, because if I don't write, I know nobody else will; and thirdly, because it is the nature of the animal to write, and I cannot help steaks is particularly offensive to you; but still, a stray European may pass through your village, and want a steak or a chop: the shop shall be established; and you shall pay for it." This is English legislation for Ireland!! There is no abuse like it in all Europe, in all Asia, in all the discovered parts of Africa, and in all we have heard of Timbuctoo! It is an error that requires 20,000 armed men for its protection in time of peace; which costs more than a million a year; and which, in the first French war, in spite of the puffing and panting of fighting steamers, will and must break out into desperate rebellion. It is commonly said, if the Roman Catholic priests are paid by the State, they will lose their influence over their flocks;-not their fair influence-not that influence which any wise and good man would wish to see in all religions -not the dependence of humble ignorance upon prudence and piety-only fellowship in faction, and fraternity in rebellion;-all that will be lost. A peep-of-day clergyman will no longer preach to a peep-of-day congregation— 342 FRAGMENT ON THE IRISH ROMAN CATHOLIC CHURCH. a Whiteboy vicar will no longer lead the be a very doubtful cure for scepticism; psalm to Whiteboy vocalists; but every- and though we have often seen the thing that is good and wholesome will tenth of the earth's produce carted remain. This, however, is not what away for the benefit of the clergymen, the anti-British faction want; they we do not remember any very lively want all the animation which piety marks of satisfaction and delight which can breathe into sedition, and all the it produced in the countenance of the fury which the priesthood can preach decimated person. I am thoroughly to diversity of faith: and this is what convinced that State payments to the they mean by a clergy losing their in- Catholic clergy would remove a thoufluence over the people! The less a sand causes of hatred between the clergyman exacts of his people, the priest and his flock, and would be as more his payments are kept out of favourable to the increase of his useful sight, the less will be the friction with authority, as it would be fatal to his which he exercises the functions of his factious influence over the people. office. A poor Catholic may respect a priest the more who marries, baptizes, and anoints; but he respects him because he associates with his name and character the performance of sacred duties, not because he exacts heavy fees for doing so. Double fees would INDEX. A. Arts and sciences, mankind much happier for 285. ABBOTT, Chief Justice, his opinions on the le- Ashantee, review of Bowdich's work on, i. 280- Absenteeism in Ireland, i. 308; its consequences, Accomplishments, female, i. 181. Africa, agriculture in, i. 72; refinement among Alarmists in 1802, note on, i. 10. 17. Almshouses, likened to church property, ii. 290. in, i. 240-250; of Seybert's work on, 286-- American debts, Letters on, ii. 326–332. Amusements, objections to them by the Me- Anabaptists, their missions in India, i. 96-114. Anglomania, Necker and the Encyclopédists ---,feræ Naturæ, 251. Ant-bears, their habits, ii. 79. Auticatholics, their addresses to the Govern- Australia, review of Collins's Account of, i. Authors, one lesson to be drawn from the B. Bail, justification of the law of, i. 56. Ballot, ii. 305-318; its alleged necessity to Baltic Powers, brief picture,of their forces, i. 57. Antiquity, superior wisdom of modern times Baltimore, its increase, i. 240. Bankes, Mr., his Act against buying game, ii. Bar, the English, its respectability preserved Barillon, his testimony as to the English court Barristers of six years' standing, the great Barrow, his eloquence, i. 5. Beggary, encouraged by the Poor-Laws, i. 348. Bentham, Jeremy, on the promulgation of laws, Bernstorff, the great minister of Denmark, i. 52. Bertrandon de la Brocquière, review of his Best, Mr. Justice, on the legality of using Bigge, Mr, his report of the colony of New Bigotry of the English in reference to Catholic Bishops, their power of making laws, i. 23; ob- Bligh, Governor, his appointment to New South Blomfield, Bishop. See London, Bishop of. 228. Bore, description of the, ii. 88. Boroughmongers, their unfair influence, ii. 216; Boroughs, rotten, the alleged cause of our Botany Bay, objections to it as a penal settle- Bourbons, a weak race, ii. 202. Bourne, Mr. Sturges, eulogium on, i. 296., ii. 154. Bowdich, Mr., review of his work on Ashantee, Bowles, John, review of his Reflections at the Brahmans, their opposition to the missionaries, Bravery of medical men, i. 66. Brawn, process of making, i. 136. Brazil, the birds of, ii. 77. Brehon law of property in Ireland, i. 82. Brown, Mr. Isaac Hawkins, ii. 147. Bussy, notice of, i. 38. Buxton, Mr., his efforts for the improvement of C. Calvinism, supported by the early reformers, Caste in India, system of, i. 116, 117; conse- Castes, institution of, the curb of ambition, i. Castlereagh, Lord, i. 315, Catholic Church of Ireland, its revenue, ii, 334; |