1825.] REVIEW-Sir E. Brydges's Recollection of Foreign Travel.

Very true; but what says a man of
little or no mind, a mere mechanic?
I first cut pens, and invented ink, and
made paper, and I have done just as
much good;-Sir Isaac complains, Is
this man to be compared to ME? cer-
tainly not, no more than a clever
pioneer is to be compared to Hanni-
bal. Why, then, we (Sir Isaac and
Croesus) are both settled in the same
town, and we will strive for influence
at the next contested election for re-
presentatives in Parliament. The can-
vass ensues. My dear Sir Isaac (says a
voter), no man respects you more than
I do, I even admire you; but Crœsus
has obtained a church living for my
son, a place in a public office for my
nephew, &c. &c. and to come to fi-
gures, wealth supplies my absolute
pressing necessities, and genius only
my luxuries; and such I own is the
degraded corruption of my habits, that
a newspaper is a greater luxury than
the finest efforts of mind which were
ever written. I know what I ought
to feel; but if you think with gods,
you must live with gods, to have your
remuneration, and have the same easy
modes of subsistence, perpetual youth,
no possibility of disease or fatigue, no
necessity for sleep or food; then we
can afford to make Kensington Gar-
dens of Parnassus, say soft things to
those pretty spinsters the Muses, and
take ambrosia with them instead of
coffee. As things are, however, we
had rather draw corks than inferences.

Men of plain sense, therefore, set down with this humble but wise resolution, to get as much money and as much virtue as they can into their families; and buy books and give dinners to authors, just as they like the

things or the men.

But we must come to the work before us. The main feature is an excellent mass of materials for a dissertation upon poetry, more especially that of Lord Byron. We allow that he wrote very many exquisite things, but we think that he was rather a magician than a deity; that he rather created the awe arising from wonder, than the sublime, according to nature. Lord Byron was a capital stage manager and a first-rate actor; but to say that his powers approximate those of Milton, is to put Roscius on a par with Hercules. Milton appears to us the fine Farnesian figure, full of the GENT. MAG. July, 1825.

49

majesty of strength; Byron, a dæmon of the storm, enthroned upon a blazing volcano, and hurling beneath him lightnings and earthquakes.

We are friends with Sir Egerton to a classical taste, and we think with him that every deviation from classical models will sink into obscurity as soon as the novelty is past. (I. 151.)

"The nearer we come to nature, the more perfect is the poetry, but then it must be high, dignified and beautiful nature. It must be spiritual blended with material nature, and both put by the powers of ima gination into palpable form. When poetry of this sterling kind appears, then all the tricks by which technical poetry strikes are blown into air, as if, after a fine-dressed beauty made up in the pink of the fashion should have attracted every eye of an assembly by the elegance of her person and appearance, the Venus de Medicis, endowed with life, should rise up in the middle of the circle would one eye still be found to admire the goddess of millinery charms?" I. 195, 197.

We must, however, leave millinery poetry, and other remarks on the subject in excellent taste, for want of room, and refer our readers to the book, which abounds with elegant grotto-work. We cannot, however, forbear adding the two following extracts concerning Literature.

"The cultivation of Literature is almost the only mode by which a man can combine a life of retirement with a life of usefulness to others, because his retirement is active in fruits dedicated to the enjoyment of the world; and wherever these fruits are genuine and sound, I believe that their effects, though generally allowed to be important, are vastly more extensive and deep than is supposed. The mind can only work per fectly on the toils of others by means of written registers of them, which it can digest in the closet in silence, and without interruption, where the reason is in full force, where the imagination is unrestrained, and the emotions can be freely indulged, unchecked by the eye of ridicule or curiosity. Nor is it a less advantage that these are communicable to those who cannot command other society, nor otherwise enjoy the thoughts and sentiments of their fellow-beings." 1. 94.

The next extract is beautiful:

"It may be observed that it is a strange thing to concern myself at all about the trifles of Literature, while interests and evils so much more intimate and pressing are attacking me on every side. These very

evils

50

REVIEW.Croly on the Popish Question.

evils are what make the relief of Literature more urgent and medicinal. I could no more have borne an hundredth part of the woes and dangers that have oppressed and gathered upon me for thirty years, without the inspiring aid of Literature, than a feather can bear a heavy stone. Literature to me has been like the buoyant wave, that lifts upon its bosom the terrific vessel of war, though loaded with a weight above numeration, and filled with all the instruments of slaughterous death and ruin! The gigantic combination of moving destruction cuts through the foaming billow, dying its brilliant colours with stench, and defiling its purity with human morbidness; but the frightful furrow it has made soon closes again; it lashes itself into its former freshness, and it throws again its white untainted spray to heaven, as if the demon of evil had

never crossed it." P. 149.

One word in conclusion. The book will do Sir Egerton high credit as a man of mind, and we are satisfied that the neglect of which he complains must be owing to hasty publication; men who seek high respect should issue only standard works. If a man writes prosing essays, or commonplace sermons, which neither increase knowledge nor confer pleasure, his fate will be like that of an innkeeper, who should charge the price of a grand dinner for stale sandwiches and bad beer. The finest Greek statues employed the sculptors for many years; and no man is qualified to write hastily who is not previously a complete master of his subject by professional skill and knowledge.

IT seems to be the ill-fated office of the advocates for religious innovations to be aiming at the destruction of common sense for the support of their respective tenets. Harsh as is the term, the whole of the Catholic Question, except in the view of conciliating Ireland, is absolutely nonsense. They demand the re-admission of the Pope politically in England, which is just as much nonsense as requesting his Majesty to take a partner in the throne; and they also call this extraordinary position an indefeasible right.

[July,

When Folly is thus strutting in peacock's feathers, it ought to be exposed. Upon the same indefeasible right, Carlile might say Paine (vulgo vocatus Tom Paine) is my Pope, and your Majesty will be pleased to recognize his representative's right also, the Quaker says, George Fox is my Pope, and I petition for his representation, and so de cæteris. But all these claims are founded upon indefeasible right. No indefeasible right can extend beyond the protcetion of life and property. The rest is an affair of compact.

The next nonsense is, that the King shall not oppose a veto, nor the Protestants make a defence; they shall be absolutely passive. We have pulled the reins with hard-mouthed horses, and found it something like tugging at a barge, but the cart is not yet before the horse, and we hope it will never be. The nonsense is this. The King lays no hand upon opinion, nor upon forms of worship, but he objects to political rights not bottomed upon his constitutional supremacy, and introductory of the claims of an unknown person, as mad (in assuming the vicegerency upon earth of the Almighty) as a March hare. In short, it is foolish to reason on the subject. A man demands a right of visiting me with a mad dog at his heels, and I shut my doors against him and his dog too.

What says Mr. Croly in his excellent fasciculus of the horrid doctrines, as in p. 81 he justly calls them?

In a Mr. Gandolphy's View of Christianity, quoted in p. 81, are the following passages: 1st. The Protestant Bishop of London must necessarily be an emissary of the Spirit of Darkness, a disciple of the father of

lies. P. 77.

We know from fact that some of the Irish Catholic priests are excellent boxers, form rings, are bottle-holders, seconds, &c. There may be indecorous men in all professions, and we should not mention this, if we did not conceive that another paragraph of Mr. Gandolphy's justifies it.

"It [the ministry] ranks them [the Catholic priests] even above the angelic spirits, and clothes them with the divine character of the MESSIAH himself. Those distinctions, however, arising from the sacerdotal

* An officer in his Majesty's Navy wit nessed it.

ministry

1825.]

REVIEW-Bishop of Landaff's Speech.

ministry exclusively belong to the priesthood of the Catholic Church." P. 82.

What ought we to say to such blasphemous fights? One line only of Walcot's,

"Mad, madder than the maddest of March hares."

We utterly protest against these remarks being attached personally to any Romanists. We allude only to their creed. That creed we think so irrational, as to vindicate the Lord Chancellor's admirable observation, viz. that the Protestant ascendancy is really a blessing to themselves, as it saves them from becoming mere slavish donkies for the riding of their priests, men utterly lost as to reason and patriotism.

7. Substance of a Speech in the House of Lords, on Thursday, May 17, 1825, by William Lord Bishop of Llandaff, on a Bill for the Removal of certain Disqualifications of the Roman Catholics. 8vo. pp. 32. Rivingtons.

IN this masterly and logical pamphlet, his Lordship states that the objection to the Emancipation of the Catholics does not proceed from their religious tenets as such, but from the connection of them with the Pope; that is to say, the objection does not lie against them as Roman Catholics, but as Papists. Some excellent argument then follows, touching ecclesiastical supremacy, in which it is shown that, though spiritual functions (as baptizing, administering the Sacraments, &c.) belong exclusively to the Church, yet that spiritual jurisdiction belongs to the State, because it is and must be in se a civil act.

But, asks his Lordship, p. 16, will the Catholics allow that the Pope has no spiritual jurisdiction in these realms? And he then proceeds to show that the very system of Popery is not only subversive of civil liberty, but also may form in the State a body of secret conspirators against its well-being in any other form than that of its own (in a rational view contemptible and degrading) superstition.

"Let it be remembered, my Lords, that the spiritual authority of the Church of Rome extends to matters of practice as well as of faith. Such also is the spirit of proselytism she cherishes, that her Clergy are bound to it by the most solemn engagements at their ordination; an obligation never imposed upon our own Clergy. Above all, my Lords, look at the absolute domi

51

nion exercised by the Romish Bishops and
Pastors over every individual of their flocks,
to which perhaps there is nothing parallel
in any other Christian community. To in-
stance only in the use of auricular confession
as it is termed, a duty exacted from every
member of their Church, and made impera-
tive, as to every thought, word, and deed,
under penalties the most appalling.
Lords, it is frightful to think upon the state
of subjection in which the whole body of
the laity are thus enthralled, and of the
unbounded influence thus obtained over
them by the priesthood; more especially
when connected with the inviolable secrecy
imposed on the Priest himself, in the dis-
charge of this part of his duty." P. 25.

My

His Lordship then shows, from the admission of Dr. Doyle himself, that notwithstanding that part of the proposed oath of allegiance, which requires the subject to disclose to the Government any treasonable designs or practices which may come to his knowledge, yet if such knowledge came to the Priest, through the medium of confession, that circumstance alone annihilated the obligation of the oath of allegiance, and misprision of treason

must therefore ensue.

this and similar tenets infuse danger-
ous disease into the whole body politic,
merely for the selfish benefit of the
Pope, and to sanction it would be just
as reasonable as to account Guy Fawkes
a martyr, and vote him a monument
in St. Paul's Cathedral, or the Abbey.
All countries who have become Pro-
testant, have been great civil gainers;
and all Popish countries have been
great civil losers.

Our readers will of course see that

The Protestants are roused, but we
hope with the determination only of
supporting their own ascendancy. If
the legislative power cannot be safely
conceded to the feudal vassals of the
Pope, those vassals, as fellow subjects,
have every right to all civil privileges
which do not affect the ascendancy in
question. Such we understand to be
the sentiments of Mr. Peel, and we
think that this able Statesman has here
drawn the proper line of demarcation.

8. State of Ireland. Letters from Ireland on
the present Political, Religious, and Moral
State of that Country. Republished from
the "Courier" Newspaper; with Emend;
ations and Notes. 2d Edit. 8vo. pp. 87.
Hatchard.

KISSING the King's hand and the
Pope's toc are very opposite things;

and

52

REVIEW.-State of Ireland.

and though the former is very desirable, the latter to an Englishman is much like taking physic, and for no purpose. Every body knows that a Dissenter, by applying to a QuarterSessions, and discarding the Pope, may sit in Parliament (if he can get there), or any where else, and that the Catholics might do the same if they thought fit. But then their religion without the Pope, is, they think, a bottle without a bottom. Now we do not think so. We cannot see why they should not sail on a new tack; why they should not do, as St. Paul did with regard to himself and Apollos, acknowledge no head but Christ, and get rid of the mill-stone round their necks. But there is a part of unknown history attached to this bustle. We have seen continental works which have broadly stated, that as the Bourbons have been restored, the Pope ought to be restored also: and because foreigners hate and envy England, they will try to get her into a cleftstick with her Irish subjects; and produce one or other of these results, destruction of patriotism or allegiance in her Catholic population, or a present equality, and subsequent hope for paramountship.

Throughout the whole of English history, in the Catholic æra, we find that it was not King, Lords, and Commons, but Pope, King, Lords, and Commons, four estates of the realm, and that the said fourth estate interfered in all public or private concerns, ex arbitrio, and exercised this tyranny by imposture, by pretending to a connexion with the Omnipotent and Christ, which every one knows must be impossible. Resistance to this dupery is deemed injustice; and because the Catholic question offered a possible opening for innovation, the naked hideousness of the fiend was drest up by sophistication; and the fox's head once in, children's books will tell the

rest.

In short, it is evident, from the existing laws, that the Pope, and nothing but the Pope, is the sole obstruction to the Catholic demands, and that it would be much more reasonable, as English not Italian privileges are the objects sought, that the Pope should rather give up his claims, as head of the Church, than our King his; but then it is utter ruin for him to concede such a possible supremacy; and

[July,

so the Catholic Question' is made up, like the quack-doctor's medicine, of a mixture that will not mix.

To make Christians without the Bible is to make men without souls, automata only; and we have a letter of a very active dignitary in Ireland which says, "I see no prospect of civilizing these people without the Bible." Now hear the author before us.

"The Roman Catholic Bishop of Kildare and Leighlin tells us, that a Protestant Bible having been left at the dwelling of a peasant, in his diocese, the man became dreadfully alarmed at the presence of such a dangerous inmate, and when night came, he took it up with a pair of tongs, not wishing to pollute his hands with its touch, and went and buried it in his garden. This is the fact. Now mark the Bishop's comment:- I admire his zeal,' says he, nay I admire it highly, and if ever I meet him, I will reward him for it."" P. 40.

As to serving God and Mammon, we see it done every day; but to invest with legislative powers persons who claim a divided allegiance—who, claim a command over the press by an Index Expurgatorius-who deny any character whatever to the Bishops or other clergy of the Protestant Church (see our author, p. 25)-who will not even give up the names of murderers to justice, if of their own religion (see p. 31)-who can sanction alterations of the canon of Scripture (see p. 38)— who can expunge whole commandments (ibid)—who disregard reverent observation of the Sabbath-and last of all, who prohibit the perusal of the Bible-to invest such men with legislative power, in a free and Protestant country, can have no other tendency but to obstruct the progress of liberty, reason, and morals.

What has been the result of Protestantism in Ireland? In Ulster, a province almost exclusively Protestant, you may leave your door open at midnight: in Munster, almost exclusively Catholic, a troop of dragoons will hardly preserve your home or person from aggression at noon-day. See pp.

42, 43.

REVIEW.-Joyce's Lay of Truth.

Sheds life and joy on seraphs while they gaze;
But guides, mysterious lamp, with scantlier
[cloudy day,
Earth's darkling children through their
Oh aid my Song; and if my feeble tone
Of faultering praise may reach thy dazzling
throne,

If from thy fount of sacred light, one gleam
May cheer my bosom and inspire my theme,
I ask no fabled help-enough for me
If Heav'n my guide, and Truth my min-
strelsy;

The morning beams of Day's bright mo-
[stone;
narch won,
Sweet harpings e'en from Memnon's chisel'd
So heavenly Truth's more piercing ray may
[breast,

our readers to the poem itself. If the
following touching lines have not
power to excite an appetite for more,
we may well close our appeal :
"While soft affection drops the pious tear,
Wraps the cold clay, and decks the sable

With kindling influence on my conscious
And from my strings, else mute, awake a
strain
[Pride disdain."
Which moody Doubt may hear, nor learned

The sainted spirit spurns her late abode, Wings her high way, and seeks the throne of [the more,

Of the general structure of the verse, polished almost to sameness, the foregoing lines may afford a specimen; but for the rich and splendid imagery, illustrating and adorning religious truths and pious feelings, we must refer