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wish to make themselves masters of the historical cases will find it stated ably and in full. In truth, a competent judgment can hardly be formed on it by those who are unacquainted with these works: Mr. Charles Butler's History of the Laws affecting the Roman Catholics; Sir H. Parnell's History of the Penal Laws; and our friend Archdeacon Glover's two most able pamphlets, published by Ridgeway. I must also take the liberty of recommending the perusal of the short but most important decla ration made this year by the Roman Catholic titular Bishops of Ireland, and by the Vicars Apostolic of Great Britain, on the subject of divided allegiance, and the other tenets ordinarily objected to them; also the declaration of the Roman Catholic nobility and gentry of England and Scotland on the same subject; both published by Keating. To those who have had the opportunity of reading these works, the foregoing letter is indeed superfluous.

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THE

PROTESTANT TORY REFUTED:

IN REPLY TO A PAMPHLET

ENTITLED,

"THE GRAND VIZIER UNMASKED."

Here's a stay

That shakes the rotten carcase of old death

Out of his rags! Here's a large mouth, indeed,
That spits forth death and mountains, rocks and seas;
Talks as familiarly of roaring lions,

As maids of thirteen do of puppy dogs!
What cannoneer begot this lusty blood?

He speaks plain cannon, fire and smoke and bounce;
He gives the bastinado with his tongue;
Our ears are cudgelled; not a word of his,
But buffets better than a fist of France:

Zounds! I was never so bethump'd with words
Since I first called my brother's father, dad,

SHAKSPEARE.

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LONDON:-1827.

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THERE is nothing so laborious as to answer a bungler. He who undertakes to reply to such a work as "The Grand Vizier Unmasked," has to arrange the meterials of two pamphlets at once: first, he must put in an intelligible form that of his opponent, and then his own. Which of these tasks will prove the most difficult in the present instance, no man who has read the production of the Protestant Tory can long doubt. For our own part, when we cast it behind us after the first perusal, we little thought, as we smiled at the soreness and simplicity of the author, that it would ever occupy another moment of our time, or exist again in our memories. But it seems that we underrated its value; and when · the public prints announced that a third edition was about to appear, we were induced to consider whether the opinion which we had at first formed of its merits, was well founded or not. Accordingly, with this candid intent we resolved to bring the little

treasure again to light; and having, after considerable search, rummaged it out from some of our various heaps of waste paper and other lumber, we patiently set ourselves to work, and gave it a second hearing. But, alas! there are some minds so irretrievably benighted that nothing is sufficient to illumine them; and at the happy termination of this our labor, we found ourselves not only as blind to its excellence as we were before, but obstinately convinced that a more shallow effusion never issued from the press.

In consequence of this opinion, which we did not conceal, we were called on to reply to it; and most reluctantly do we answer the call, candidly confessing, even now, with pen in hand, that we know not how to grapple with a work which, according to our ideas of composition, has neither beginning, middle, nor end— which is totally destitute of all clear arrangement, or even the attempt at it; which pretends not to the semblance of argument from the first word to the last; and which, by exhibiting all the malignity of satire, though without the wit, evidently means to be severe, but ends in being no more than ridiculous; since, in effect, it contains nothing but a tissue of abuse without proof, and of the most uncourteous and intemperate invective, without so much as the shadow of evidence. How, then, is it possible to reply to such a tirade as this, in which not only are there no two consecutive pages which have uniform reference to each other, but where there is scarcely a single page containing any thing more argumentative than what is afforded by personal censure, alleged facts without references, or arbitrary opinions unsupported by reasoning?

This gentleman, in truth, seems to have discovered that the perfection of logical analysis is, his ipse dixit.

Writers of a less celestial intellect, and yet great names in their time, pursued a different course. Before the days of the Protestant Tory, lived one John Locke. (Did the Tory ever hear of him? At any rate he has not copied his style.) He wrote a book on the human understanding, and formerly was esteemed a wise man: we, haply in our foolishness, have coincided with that once so generally-received opinion; and having acquired from his writings a habit of looking for the reason of things, and of preferring the argumentative to the Protestant-Tory mode of conducting an inquiry, feel ourselves greatly at a loss on the present emergency, and altogether unprepared to enter on so novel a species of warfare.

The only effectual method, indeed, of dealing with this pamphlet, would be to take the whole by sentences, each in the order in which it is placed, and to answer them paragraph by paragraph; but as this would be rather too much for our readers as well as

ourselves, we will travel by a shorter road, and if we can succeed in ferreting out some tangible charge brought forward against Mr. Canning in any thing approaching to an intelligible shape, we will persevere in dodging it through the labyrinth in which it is entangled, with as much patience as we can command.

How many charges the author means to prefer against the object of his envy, in the sixty-five pages of vituperation which are now before us, we have no means of discovering. We would not willingly be guilty of omission, but as it is more than probable that that learned individual is in an equal state of uncertainty with ourselves in this respect, we must content ourselves with giving as good a guess as we can at the supposed number of guns in the battery..

These charges, then, appear to us to be two in number-one, Catholic advocacy; the other, political inconsistency.

Our author may haply imagine, that his accusations are nearer twenty in number than two; and so, for aught we know, they may be but we again assure our readers, that as it is out of our power even to patch up from his pages more than the two abovementioned, into any shape sufficiently distinct and intelligible to admit of a distinct and intelligible answer, we cannot do more than apply to the remainder of the work the same species of desultory writing in which it has been framed. Our reply, therefore, will be divided into the three following heads-Catholic Advocacy, Political Inconsistency, General Remarks.

CATHOLIC ADVOCACY.

Our author, after informing us, at page 4, that the main ingredients in the character of an English Prime Minister are, that he should be the Earl of Liverpool, proceeds to say, that Mr. Canning is by no means fitted for that high station, because he is not "a devoted champion of the Protestant Church, and because, as he frequently tells us in other places, he has swerved from the principies of Mr. Pitt." At page 15, we find as follows:-At the

formation of Mr. Pitt's new administration in 1805, when the resources of that master-mind were again called forth by the unanimous voice of the country," &c.;-At page 16, "It was well at that eventful moment that a Pitt was lord of the ascendant ;At page 17, "He (Mr. Canning) condescended to join one (an administration) which Pitt, in his wisdom, directed upon oldfashioned English principles." "Shade of Pitt, O that thou couldst arise!" &c. Again, at page 29, exclaims this lucid and consistent writer, who

"With just enough of learning to misquote,"

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