evils; and, at the bitterest of human moments, mercy is blotted out from the ways of men!" But the road to a bishoprick is through "the Frogs of Aristophanes and the Targum of Onkelos, or it lies among the fouler ways of servility and bigotry; not in such thoughts as these. Our interest in the matter is not much; but we think it a pity for those who love the Episcopal bench, that it should be constrained to dulnesses for ever. "What a blessing to this country would a real bishop be! A man who thought it the first duty of Christianity to allay the bad passions of mankind, and to reconcile contending sects with each other. What peace and happiness such a man as the Bishop of London might have conferred on the empire, if, instead of changing black dresses for white dresses, and administering to the frivolous disputes of foolish zealots, he had labored to abate the hatred of Protestants for the Roman Catholics, and had dedicated his powerful understanding to promote religious peace 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, 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 commanding 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 had called him to that high office, he was called for no mean purpose, but rather that, seeing clearly, and acting boldly, and intending purely, he might confer lasting benefits upon mankind." 66 This passage is from the Fragment before us; a posthumous and "unrevised" publication. "If it serves no other purpose," it is said in a brief preface, it will at least prove that his last, as well as his earliest efforts, were exerted for the promotion of religious freedom, and may satisfy those who have objected to his later writings, because his own interest appeared to be bound up with his opinions, that he did not hesitate, to the last moment of his life, boldly to advocate what he considered to be justice to others." We do not think the proof was needed, believing the objections frivolous; and we must frankly say, on the whole, that we could have spared this Frag ment. Not because it is unrevised in point of style. What our contemporaries remark of the polish and elaboration of Sydney Smith's sentences, is certainly erroneous. He wrote, if ever man did, Currente Calamo. Corrections, either in his manuscript or proof, were extremely rare. Our object is of another kind. "There would have been a time" for such a Fragment, which is not now; not to say that its illustrations are scarcely borne out by its argument. But since wit does not lose value as wit, because it is not wisdom, let us satisfy the curiosity of the reader with one or two extracts more. SHE IS NOT WELL. "The revenue of the Irish Roman Catholic church is made up of half-pence, potatoes, rags, bones, and fragments of old clothes, and those Irish old clothes. They worship often in hovels, or in the open air, from the want of any place of worship. Their religion is the religion of three fourths of the population! Not far off, in a wellwindowed and well-roofed house, is a well-paid Protestant clergyman, preaching to stools and hassocks, and crying in the wilderness; near him the clerk, next him the sexton, near him the sexton's wife-furious against the errors of Popery, and willing to lay down their lives for the great truths established at the Diet of Augsburg. "There is a story in the Leinster family which passes under the name of 'She is not well.' "A Protestant clergyman, whose church was in the neighborhood, was a guest at the house of that upright and excellent man the Duke of Leinster. He had been staying there three or four days; and on Saturday night, as they were all retiring to their rooms, the duke said, 'We shall meet to-morrow at breakfast.'-'Not so (said our Milesian Protestant ;) your hour, my lord, is a little too late for me; I am very particular in the discharge of my duty, and your breakfast will interfere with my church.' The duke was pleased with the very proper excuses of his guest, and they separated for the night; his grace perhaps deeming his palace more safe from all the evils of life for containing in its bosom such an exemplary son of the church. The first person, however, whom the duke saw in the morning upon entering the breakfast-room was our punctual Protestant, deep in rolls and butter, his finger in an egg, and a large slice of the best Tipperary ham secured on his plate. Delighted to see you, my dear vicar,' said the duke; but I must say as much surprised as delighted.'-'Oh, don't you know what has happened?' said the sacred breakfaster, she is 6 not well.'-' Who is not well?' said the duke: you are not married-you have no sister livingI'm quite uneasy; tell me who is not well.'— Why, the fact is, my lord duke, that my congregation consists of the clerk, the sexton, and the sexton's wife. Now the sexton's wife is in very delicate health when she cannot attend, we cannot muster the number mentioned in the rubric; and we have, therefore, no service on that day. The good woman had a cold and sore throat this morning, and, as I had breakfasted but slightly, I thought I might as well hurry back to the regular family dejeuner.' I don't know that the clergyman behaved improperly; but such a church is hardly worth an insurrection and civil war every ten years." BISHOPS, PROTESTANT AND CATHOLIC. "If I were a bishop, living beautifully in a state of serene plenitude, I don't think I could endure the thought of so many honest, pious, and laborious clergymen of another faith, placed in such disgraceful circumstances! I could not get into my carriage with jelly-springs, or see my two courses every day, without remembering the buggy and the bacon of some poor old Catholic bishop, ten | bassador at Constantinople, and are startled with times as laborious, and with much more, perhaps, the idea of communicating diplomatically with of theological learning than myself, often dis- Rome, deeming the sultan a better Christian than tressed for a few pounds! and burthened with the pope!" duties utterly disproportioned to his age and strength. I think, if the extreme comfort of my own condition did not extinguish all feeling for others, I should sharply commiserate such a church, and attempt with ardor and perseverance to apply the proper remedy.” REPEAL OF THE UNION. "Much as I hate wounds, dangers, privations, and explosions-much as I love regular hours of dinner-foolish as I think men covered with the feathers of the male Pullus domesticus, and covered with lace in the course of the ischiatic nerve much as I detest all these follies and ferocities, would rather turn soldier myself than acquiesce quietly in such a separation of the empire. I "It is such a piece of nonsense, that no man can have any reverence for himself who would stop to discuss such a question. It is such a piece of anti-British villany, that none but the bitterest enemy of our blood and people could entertain such a project! It is to be met only with round and grape-to be answered by Shrapnel and Congreve to be discussed in hollow squares, and refuted by battalions four deep; to be put down by the ultima ratio of that armed Aristotle the Duke of Wellington. "O'Connell is released; and released I have no doubt by the conscientious decision of the law lords. If he was unjustly (even from some technical defect) imprisoned, I rejoice in his liberation. England is, I believe, the only country in the world, where such an event could have happened, and a wise Irishman (if there be a wise Irishman) should be slow in separating from a country whose spirit can produce, and whose institutions can admit, of such a result. Of his guilt no one doubts, but guilty men must be hung technically and according to established rules; upon a statutable gibbet, with parliament rope, and a legal hangman, sheriff, and chaplain on the scaffold, and the mob in the foreground. "But, after all, I have no desire my dear Daniel should come to any harm, for I believe there is a great deal of virtue and excellent meaning in him." COMMUNICATION WITH THE POPE. The argument of the Fragment is for a state provision to the Roman Catholic Clergy. It has often been advocated; oftener than the already existing Irish example of a state provision, and a comparison of the performance of duties by a paid and an unpaid clergy, might seem to warrant. There are obstinate people who will continue to think, and to imagine themselves warranted by the experience of history in thinking, that nothing is so sure to corrupt religious teaching as interference from temporal governors; and who will point to church-and-state connexion for the proof, that make each the ally of the other's abuses. It is by making the one dependent on the other, you admitted on all hands that the religious duties of the Roman Catholic clergy in Ireland are as faithfully performed as those of any clergy in the world; more faithfully than most. We should dread to disturb this, if we had authority. The evil political power of the Irish priest is a direct emanation of the existing state establishment. Assail that if you will; but do not think to correct its abuses by raising up another; nor imagine that you could peaceably or reasonably adjust such rival claims. What, for example, should be the apportionment to the religion of the seven millions, and what to the religion of the one million! The analogy resorted to is the Presbyterian Church in Scotland; but it fails in the important particular of the rival establishment. In Sydney Smith's "Private Memoranda of Subjects," intended to have been introduced in the and should cast off its connexion with the Irish pamphlet was found a pregnant sentence :-"EngChurch." To that we give a hearty Amen. From the Spectator. of religious temporalities, the present week has In addition to all that is passing on the question been enriched by a Fragment on the Irish Roman Catholic Church, from the dying hand of Sydney Smith; which his executors have properly given to the world. From a prefixed list of "private troduced in the pamphlet," we catch a glimpse of memoranda of subjects intended to have been inthe manner in which the author prepared his matter, and the fulness with which he would have "It turns out that there is no law to prevent treated his subject had life been spared to him: entering into diplomatic engagements with the one significant jotting of "a head," as yet unpope. The sooner we become acquainted with a touched-"England should cast off its connexion gentleman who has so much to say to eight mil- with the Irish Church"-shows the length to lions of our subjects the better! Can anything be which he himself was prepared to go. Looking so childish and absurd as a horror of communicat-at the plan so far as rough-sketched by its author, ing with the pope, and all the hobgoblins we have imagined of premunires and outlawries for this contraband trade in piety? Our ancestors (strange to say wiser than ourselves) have left us to do as we please, and the sooner government do, what they can do legally, the better. A thousand opportunities of doing good in Irish affairs have been lost, from our having no avowed and dignified agent at the court of Rome. If it depended upon me, I would send the Duke of Devonshire there to-morrow, with nine chaplains and several tons of Protestant theology. I have no love of popery, but the pope is at all events better than the idol of Juggernaut, whose chaplains I believe we pay, and whose chariot I dare say is made in Long acre. We pay 10,000l. a year to our am it may not critically be pronounced so complete and orderly a view as many productions. It is not so complete as a college theme, or a prize essay, or an article for a cyclopædia. It throws overboard all appeals to history, and even all arguments deduced from abstract principles, as if they were done with; and comes at once to the practical view. But how thoroughly the pith of the broad, common sense, working views is presented! Here and there, perhaps, may be found a rather weak sentence or a flat joke, which even a revision of the Fragment might have removed; but what a masterly comprehension of the present and immediate! how thorough an appreciation of what practically bears upon the case though seeming as a mere topic to look remote-what a quiet will be some opposition at first; but the facility of getting the salary without the violence they are now forced to use, and the difficulties to which they are exposed in procuring the payment of those emoluments to which they are fairly entitled, will in the end overcome all obstacles. And if it does not succeed, what harm is done by the attempt? * The Roman Catholic priest could not refuse to draw his salary from the state without incurring the indignation of his flock. Why are you to come upon us for all this money, when you can ride over to Sligo or Belfast, and draw a draught upon government for the amount?" It is not easy to give a satisfactory answer to this, to a shrewd man who is starving to death. PEEL AND THE ULTRAS. rejection of all that is really remote though look-payable at sight in Dublin, or by agents in the ing near! Then, too, what flashes of wit!-not next market-town dependent upon the commission merely that cold or studious conceit which consists in Dublin. The housekeeper of the holy man is "in bringing remote images happily together,' importunate for money; and if it is not procured but an urging of the aptest arguments in the by drawing for the salary, it must be extorted by most cogent way, with illustrations that not only curses and comminations from the ragged worstrengthen the reasoning, but present living pic-shippers, slowly, sorrowfully, and sadly. There tures to the mind. Age did not deaden his sympathies nor blunt his wit; nor, O rare Sydney, cause a single change in his principles or political views. So just was his foresight, so keen his appreciation of national requirements, and so slowly does the world wag onward, that, while all around were changing, he and the Duke of Newcastle, political antipodes, alone stood on their old spot. "Sum quod fui" might have been his motto on his dying-day. Or if advancing years, and a political revolution that has made other men turn round like whipping-tops, modified anything, it was his party-spirit. The cant and cowardice of mere whiggery he never had; but of late years there was perhaps less of an opposition hatred than in the days when Canning was the object of his sarcasm as a "diner-out." Yet his spirit might say, and truly, "I was always a conservative; always for maintaining the institutions of the country, but reforming all proved abuses. More than forty years ago, I began to lay down the principles of true conservatism: men have come to me, I have not gone to them." There is gall and wormwood to fustian liberals in many parts of this last legacy. Here is one especially, in an estimate of the "Monster Trial." "Sir Robert did well in fighting it out with O'Connell. He was too late; but when he began he did it boldly and sensibly; and I, for one, am heartily glad O'Connell has been found guilty and imprisoned. He was either in earnest about re- And let me beg of my dear Ultras not to impeal or he was not. If he was in earnest, I en-agine that they survive for a single instant without tirely agree with Lord Grey and Lord Spenser, Sir Robert-that they could form an Ultra-Tory that civil war is preferable to repeal. Much as I Administration. Is there a Chartist in Great hate wounds, dangers, privations, and explosions Britain who would not, upon the first intimation -much as I love regular hours of dinner-foolish of such an attempt, order a new suit of clothes, as I think men covered with the feathers of the and call upon the baker and milkman for an exmale pullus domesticus, and covered with lace intended credit? Is there a political reasoner who the course of the ischiatic nerve-much as I would not come out of his hole with a new condetest all these follies and ferocities, I would stitution? rather turn soldier myself than acquiesce quietly in such a separation of the empire.' THE MORAL OF THE REVERSAL. I have some belief in Sir Robert. He is a man of great understanding, and must see that this eternal O'Connelling will never do-that it is impossible it can last. We are in a transition state, and the Tories may be assured that the baronet will not go too fast. If Peel tells them that the thing must be done, they may be sure it is high time to do it: they may retreat mournfully and sullenly before common justice and common sense, but retreat they must when Tamworth gives the word—and in quick-step too, and without loss of time. Is there one ravenous rogue who would not be looking for his prey? Is there one honest man of common sense who does not see that universal disaffection and civil war would follow from the blind fury, the childish prejudices, and the deep ignorance of such a sect? I have a high opinion of Sir Robert Peel; but he must summon up all his political courage, and do something next session for the payment of the Roman priests. He must run some risk of shocking public opinion; no greater risk, however, than he did in Catholic Emancipation. O'Connell is released; and released, I have no doubt, by the conscientious decision of the law lords. If he was unjustly (even from some technical defect) imprisoned, I rejoice in his liberation. England is, I believe, the only country in the world where such an event could have happened; and a wise Irishman (if there be a wise Irishman) should be slow in separating from a country whose spirit can produce and whose institutions can admit of such a result. Of his guilt no one doubts; but There is only one man in the cabinet [probably guilty men must be hung technically and accord- Mr. Gladstone, who is no longer there] who obing to established rules-upon a statutable gibbet, jects from reasons purely fanatical, because the with parliament rope, and a legal hangman, sher-Pope is the Scarlet Lady, or the Seventh Vial, or iff, and chaplain on the scaffold, and the mob in the Little Horn. All the rest are entirely of the foreground. THE FIRST THING FOR IRELAND. The first thing to be done is to pay the priests; and after a little time they will take the money. One man wants to repair his cottage; another wants a buggy; a third cannot shut his eyes to the dilapidation of a cassock. The draught is FEELINGS OF THE CABINET. opinion that it ought to be done-that it is the one thing needful but they are afraid of bishops, and county meetings, newspapers, and pamphlets, and reviews; all fair enough objects of apprehension, but they must be met, and encountered, and put down. It is impossible that the subject can be much longer avoided, and that every year is to produce a deadly struggle with the people, and a long trial in time of peace with O'somebody, the patriot for the time being, or the general, perhaps, in time of a foreign war. THE POLICY OF PAY. Give the clergy a maintenance separate from the will of the people, and you will then enable them to oppose the folly and madness of the people. The objection to the state provision does not really come from the clergy, but from the agitators and repealers these men see the immense advantage of carrying the clergy with them in their agitation, and of giving the sanction 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 coöperating 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. * 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 Peepof-day clergyman will no longer preach to a Peepof-day congregation-a Whiteboy vicar will no longer lead the psalm to Whiteboy vocalists; but everything that is good and wholesome will remain. This, however, is not what the anti-British faction want: they want all the animation which piety can breathe into sedition, and all the fury which the priesthood can preach to diversity of faith and this is what they mean by a clergy losing their influence over the people! The cost of his policy Sydney Smith rates at 400,000l. a year. It has been remarked by a writer, who had not read the pamphlet, or wilfully shut his eyes to its contents, that this was easy for a wit to say, who has not, like a chancellor of the exchequer, to find the money. But the wit had forestalled his critic, not only about the money, but something more. "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 twenty thousand 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." THE LAST CONFESSION. 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 it. Still, in looking back I see no reason to repent. What I have said 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. STANZAS TO ENGLAND. When the curse Heaven keeps for the haughty came over TOO LONG it hath been said and sung, Thine influence is flung, MOORE. And not a spot on earth, but knows Too much thou hast exalted been, Too much with pride of place, But what will Hist'ry say of thee And ended is thy sway; As Rome before thee knew ; Where all must have their due? How hast thou used the boundless power The seeds of good thou had'st to sow, Hast thou like gardens made? With green bough and with blade? And doth the gospel sunlight shine Where all before was shade? Thou answerest, yea, the mental waste My missionaries have gone forth My merchant-ships have crossed the main No more the savage is a brute, The heathen no more blind; 'Tis even so-thou hast done this, Before the judgment seat, but there Are red spots on thy hand, And Pride is throned upon thy brow, And Hatred in thy heart; From many a fair and fertile realm Thou badest Peace depart; And oft with words of brotherhood, Didst act a foeman's part. How will the Hindoo testify, And how the brave Affghan, Will not thy sister Erin have Oh, thou hast run a mad career With evil thoughts, and passions wild, Surrounding nations have looked on Hath a less nervous sweep, Have laid his powers asleep, For slights and fancied injuries To take a vengeance deep. They watch, and not methinks in vain, The times are big with bodeful signs, Oh, let thine armies be recalled Who dwell thy sway beneath; Look back to other times, and learn God grant thine be not near! A nation that but forgeth chains, SLAVERY AND THE SLAVE TRADE. Ir will be a most melancholy and disheartening though not a dishonorable tale, should history have to tell the failure of English efforts to put an end to slavery and the slave trade. It will be not only sad for the negro race, but for humanity, since it must throw a chill upon every kind of political measure or policy, founded upon religious or philanthropic sentiment. The Crusades are one great example of a policy, springing out of religious feeling, being gigantic, strenuous, continued, yet vain efforts to resist the torrent of fanaticism and conquest which rolled from east to west. The flood of negro labor and population, which set across the Atlantic urged by the cupidity of Europeans, seems as great, as irresistible, as the tide of Mahommedan fanaticism. One is as abhorrent to Christian and humane feeling as the other, and Christian feeling was roused and tasked to combat both. Shall the tale of failure be told of both? Must Clarkson and Wilberforce be set down in the same Category with Peter the Hermit and St. Louis? And is it decreed that the African race shall fill all these central and southern regions of America, from whence the whites drove the Indians, in order to monopolize a soil which they could not cultivate, and to the tilling and final possession of which they were obliged to call in the African? What hopes have we from the three modes of combating slavery, so zealously, so energetically followed? From that of converting the Africans themselves to habits and interests opposed to slavery and its emigration? From that of perfecting and extending the right of search, so as to render the sea passage too difficult or too great a risk for the trader? Or, finally, from that of inducing transatlantic states to forego slavery and the slave trade? Different sections of the public, or zealous individuals, may have different opinions respecting the efficacy or hopefulness of these modes. But there exists such a diversity that no common effort is any longer to be counted upon. The internal civilization of Africa is a scheme still pursued by a few, and we hear still of expeditions, and of a certain specific for fever, which is to work wonders: but the public and the cabinet remain incredulous. Lord Palmerston and most of the leading whigs pin their faith to the right of search; but the feeling hostile to it has risen even as high as his lordship's energy. People say, must French and English whites cut each others' throats in order that the blacks may be free? Piles of blue books remain as testimonies to Lord Palmerston's activity and success in negotiation; but like Cœur de Lion in the Crusades, the Saracen tide has still continued to rush on beyond the power of a single arm to stay such multitudes. Even the anti-slavery societies cry Hold. A There remains the hope of inducing slave-countries to forego their Helotism. Vain hope! if the English government could not preserve Texas from an influx of slavery, how can it hope to abolish what it cannot pretend even to limit. Tory journal alleges that the American planter does not need any influx of African slaves, and that he dreads them. This may be true of the American slave-owner confined to Carolina or to the worn out soil of the old states, but with Texas annexed, and its immense seaboard within a few hours' run of Cuba, the American slave trade will in all human probability be resuscitated; and the only safeguard against it must be either in the |
