lutions anywhere. Moreover, the particular oath required of Roman Catholic members by the settlement of 1829 was not, like that imposed upon Protestant Dissenters, a simple declaration that they would not employ their influence as members of Parliament to injure the Established Church in its rights or property. Had this been all, the probability is that we should have been spared the agitation which is now going on, and that Roman Catholic peers and commoners, like Nonconformist members of the House of Commons, would have given to their promises just as much force as the sense of honour in individuals might suggest. Such men as Lord Edward Howard, for example, and one or two others whom we could name, would have rigidly abstained from speaking and voting on all questions affecting the Church and her interests. Others would have seized every opportunity of doing as Mr Childers and Sir Joseph Paxton used to do-spoken, voted, and brought in bills in the very teeth of the pledge which they had deliberately given, and with the undisguised purpose of reducing, if possible, the Established Church to the same level with the sects which surrounded her. But the authors of the Emancipation Bill, intending, no doubt, partly to conciliate Protestant opposition, partly to act fairly by the constitution, overlaid the oaths imposed on Roman Catholic members of Parliament with clauses which afforded a plausible excuse at least for reason able complaint.

Consider for a moment what the points are to which Roman Catholic peers and members of the House of Commons are required to swear. Does any sane man believe that it is an article in the creed of an educated Roman Catholic layman in these days, "that princes excommunicated by the Pope, or any other authority of the See of Rome, may be deposed or murdered by their subjects, or by

any other person whatsoever”? And if we, the Protestant people of England, resent as an outrage to ourselves the possible assumption of such a scandalous belief in regard to our Roman Catholic fellow-subjects, is it becoming,-was it ever becoming,-that peers and members of Parliament should be required to swear that such "is not an article of their faith, and that they do renounce, reject, and abhor it"? So likewise the clause with which the Roman Catholic oath concludes, reads very much as if the noblemen and gentlemen who had just sworn were called upon to swear again to their own veracity : "I do solemnly in the presence of God profess, testify, and declare that I make this declaration, and every part thereof, in the plain and common sense of the words, and without evasion, equivocation, or mental reservation." Observe, we by no means pretend to assert, probably no honest Roman Catholic will assert, that the doctrine of "evasion, equivocation, and mental reservation," is not justified, and even enjoined under peculiar circumstances, in the class-books that are used in Roman Catholic places of education. A candidate for the priesthood learns to regard all obligations of moral right and natural affection as secondary to the interests of his Church. To promote these he may swear and violate a dozen oaths with impunity; but to assume the same thing of Roman Catholic laymen,-of such among them, at least, as are qualified to sit as members of the Legislature in either House of Parliament,-is to insult gratuitously a body of men whose sense of honour is as keen as that of English gentlemen in general. For surely you can have no right to exact from them this latter solemn declaration, unless there is reason to believe or to suspect them of paltering in all that goes before with the truth. Indeed, your doing so places you at once between the horns of a

dilemma. If you do not suspect them of so paltering, why act towards them as if you did? If you do suspect, and have good ground for your suspicion, what protection against the impending evil will be afforded by the new form of words which you put into their mouths ? He who deliberately intends to break one oath, will not be deterred from doing so because he is compelled to take another. He will only remember the outrage offered to his self-respect, and be the more ready, as soon as the occasion rises, to violate both engagements.

It is impossible to deny that such may be the impression made on honourable minds by the state of things which now exists. It is certain that into this channel the thoughts, not of Roman Catholics only, but of Protestants likewise, have of late years been turned. And if the conviction be generally established, that of the Roman Catholic oath a good deal is at once worthless and offensive, there can be little indisposition anywhere to throw aside, by fitting means and on a fitting occasion, all that really deserves so to be designated. But there are times and seasons for everything, as well as instruments peculiarly suited for trying conclusions so important as these. In the matter as it lately came before Parliament, times, seasons, and instruments seemed all to be out of joint. It was the duty of Ministers, assuming them to be convinced of the reasonableness of Mr Monsell's proposal, themselves to make it, and to stake their existence as a Government on the success of their measure. And it was especially their business to have brought in a bill, such as in their deliberate judgment they felt themselves able to approve, long ago. They have not made the measure their own, nor staked their existence as a Government upon it; but they have encouraged a private member, and he too a Roman Catholic, to propose the change, and have done

so on the very eve of a dissolution. There may be party cleverness in all this, but there is neither dignity nor patriotism. It is clear that the grievances of the Roman Catholic laity gave her Majesty's present Ministers no concern. They were willing that things should remain where the settlement of 1829 had placed them, so long as they saw reason to hope that the Roman Catholics, as a political party, would support them in their general policy. But now, when they learn to their dismay that the more respectable portion of that party has become Conservative, they are willing to run any risk, and to give up any prejudice, so long as there is a chance of sowing, by such means, dissension between the Roman Catholics and the Tories.

On the other, it won't do for the Government to take the lead in proposing this change. Democratic Scotland is likewise anti-papal Scotland; and is as likely as not, when the elections come on, to prefer an ultraProtestant Conservative to a proPapal Whig. It will not answer the purpose of the Government, therefore, to stand boldly forward as the authors of this measure. But they flatter themselves that in supporting it, not as Ministers of the Crown but as individuals, they will give no mortal offence to any body of persons whose general cry for electioneering purposes is, "Civil and Religious Liberty all over the world!" And thus thinking, they encourage Mr Monsell to introduce his bill at the exact moment when it seems calculated to bring the greatest amount of embarrassment upon their rivals. That the bill would not pass in its integrity, Ministers knew perfectly well from the beginning. If it made its way through the Commons-which was doubtful-the Lords would deal with it as seemed expedient to themselves. But forasmuch as the fate of the bill was never an object of any real importance to the Government, they encouraged their instrument to

bring it forward, hoping as much from its rejection as from its success. A fierce and haughty resistance to the whole scheme must, of course, exasperate even the most moderate of Roman Catholics; while any appearance of a disposition to trim, or play fast and loose with old engagements, could hardly fail to dissatisfy strong Protestants. Such is the motive which stirred the Queen's Ministers to take the line which they are following in the matter of the Roman Catholic oath. How far it will serve their purpose remains to be seen. In the meanwhile, it may not be amiss if we recall to the recollection of our readers certain circumstances connected with the Emancipation Act of 1829, which the speakers in the late debate in the House of Commons appear on both sides to have ignored, and with which the general public out of doors seem to be very little acquainted.

The repeal of the laws which excluded Roman Catholics from Parliament was about as bungled and mismanaged a piece of legislation as ever occurred in this country. The measure may or may not have been inevitable, but there can be no doubt as to these two conclusions: first, that it was proposed and carried by men who ought never to have touched it; and, next, that it was marred in the concoction. That the Duke and Sir Robert Peel believed what they said in extenuation of their fatal policy, we cannot for a moment profess to doubt. They considered that the time was come when farther resistance to the demands of the Roman Catholics was impossible; that even civil war itself, had the country been willing to face so dire a calamity, would but retard the inevitable issue; and yet that they, the elected chiefs of the Tory and antiCatholic party, were the only statesmen possessed of influence enough to carry a measure of emancipation through Parliament. Now, without stopping to argue the former of

these points, we beg to enter a direct contradiction to the latter. The Duke and Peel had only to resign, assigning as their reason that they found it impossible to maintain any longer the policy of former days, and a Ministry would have been formed for the express purpose of doing that from attempting which old pledges compelled them to turn away. Will anybody pretend to argue that they would have been less influential as private members of Parliament than as Ministers of the Crown in persuading their friends, under the circumstances, to submit to what had become a dire necessity? And would not their position have been far more commanding in the political world had they followed this course than it was in pursuing its opposite? What a difference between the case of statesmen who voluntarily lay down place, power, and patronage, saying to their followers, "We have well considered the whole matter-we make this painful sacrifice to duty and to the force of irresistible circumstanceswe entreat you for the sake of our common country to make a similar sacrifice," and that of the same statesmen holding on to office, and, without a word spoken, without an apology offered, dragging their party through the mire! Nor can we be fairly met by the platitude that a Minister's first thought should be for his country; his second, and that at a wide interval, for his party. The interests of the country cannot be separated from the interests of such a party as that which had chosen the Duke of Wellington and Sir Robert Peel to be its leaders. The country might require-perhaps in the case of the Catholic question it did require that the views of the party should be crossed; but the country could gain nothing from the shipwreck of the public characters of those to whom it had so long been accustomed to look up as the very models of all that was trustworthy. This, then,

was the first great blunder committed, that Tory leaders did what Whigs ought to have done and could have done quite as effectually as they, the country gaining nothing, the party losing everything, by the manœuvre. And next to that, though certainly a far way behind it, comes the clumsy manner in which the deed was executed. In the first place, the Protestant institutions of the country were guarded by a mere form of oath, so ingeniously composed that it irritated the Roman Catholic swearer without in the slightest degree giving confidence to the Protestant hearer. In the next place, a Roman Catholic gentleman, already returned to Parliament before the bill became law, was not allowed to take the oath and his seat at once, but on a mere point of technicality, and with a full assurance of what must ensue, was sent back to his constituents, who immediately reelected him. This might be Spartan justice-no doubt it was, but it was very bad policy. It erased from his mind all kindly recollection of the benefits conferred on himself and his coreligionists, and fixed him for ever in opposition to the Government which had opened for him the doors of the House of Commons.

For the clumsy and inefficient manner in which emancipation was conceded, the Duke of Wellington is not, however, entirely responsible. This is a point of which the Tory party ought never to lose sight; not alone because it becomes them to do justice to the memory of the most honest statesman whom any age and country has produced, but because from the errors of the past lessons may be learned against the future, in which the bravest of us cannot fail to see that serious difficulties are looming. The Duke's measure, as originally submitted to the King and to his colleagues, embraced all the points which Mr Pitt could have introduced into his plan, had he been permitted to mature one, with an additional ar

rangement of which the importance cannot be overrated. Besides getting rid of the forty-shilling freeholders, created for purposes of corruption by the Irish Parliament, and the source of all the evils which subsequently afflicted the country, -besides doing this, and giving to the Crown a right of controlling, visiting, and inspecting religious houses, the Duke proposed to pay the Roman Catholic clergy of Ireland out of the consolidated fund, and to impose upon them in return for this boon, from the highest to the lowest, the necessity of taking out licences from the Crown, as hereafter they should be ordained, in order to qualify them for the exercise of their functions within the realm. His object was to bring the Romish clergy as much under the influence of the civil government of Great Britain and Ireland as they are under the influence of the civil governments of Prussia, Holland, Russia, and other non-Roman Catholic states of Europe. And as our laws forbade us in 1828 to enter into public relations of any sort with Rome, it appeared to him that this was the one feasible means of accomplishing so desirable an end. For concordats can be concluded only between Powers which are acknowledged on both sides to have legitimate influence in the districts to which they refer;-as between Protestant Prussia on the one hand and the See of Rome on the other, in reference to Silesia and to the Rhenish provinces, both of them recent conquests from Roman Catholic Powers, and both Roman Catholic in their religious establishments. But England could not enter into concordat with Rome in reference to Ireland, because Ireland has, in its established religion as well as in its civil institutions, followed in the wake of England for many centuries back. Neither could the King of England accept a veto on the appointment of Roman Catholic bishops in Ireland, because of the existence of such bishops in Ire