Infallibly dvom any individual to punishment, | nation of their subjects; for though men will if it did not, fortunately for him, display pre- often yield up their happiness to kings who cisely that contempt of men's feelings, and that have been always kings, they are not inclined passion for insulting multitudes, which is so to show the same deference to men who have congenial to our present government at home, been merchants' clerks yesterday, and are and which passes now so currently for wisdom kings to-day. From a danger of this kind, the and courage. By these means, the liberties governor of Madras appears to us to have very of great nations are frequently destroyed-and narrowly escaped. We sincerely hope that destroyed with impunity to the perpetrators of he is grateful for his good luck; and that he the crime. In distant colonies, however, go- will now awake from his gorgeous dreams of vernors who attempt the same system of mercantile monarchy, to good nature, moderatyranny are in no little danger from the indig- tion, and common sense.

BISHOP OF LINCOLN'S CHARGE.t

[EDINBURGH REVIEW, 1813.]

It is a melancholy thing to see a man, clothed in | dition, and other faith, may fairly aspire, was soft raiment, lodged in a public palace, endowed with not frequently the most severe and galling of a rich portion of the product of other men's industry, all punishments. This limited idea of the using all the influence of his splendid situation, how-nature of punishments is the more extraordiever conscientiously, to deepen the ignorance, and nary, as incapacitation is actually one of the inflame the fury, of his fellow-creatures. These are most common punishments in some branches the miserable results of that policy which has been so of our law. The sentence of a court-martial frequently pursued for these fifty years past, of frequently purports, that a man is rendered for placing men of mean, or middling abilities, in high ever incapable of serving his majesty, &c. &c.; ecclesiastical stations. In ordinary times, it is of and a person not in holy orders, who performs less importance who fills them; but when the bitter the functions of a clergyman, is rendered for period arrives, in which the people must give up some ever incapable of holding any preferment in the of their darling absurdities;—when the senseless church. There are, indeed, many species of clamour, which has been carefully handed down from offence for which no punishment more appofather fool to son fool, can be no longer indulged;— site and judicious could be devised. It would when it is of incalculable importance to turn the be rather extraordinary, however, if the court, people to a better way of thinking; the greatest im- in passing such a sentence, were to assure the pediments to all amelioration are too often found culprit, “that such incapac.tation was not by among those to whose councils, at such periods, the them considered as a punishment; that it was country ought to look for wisdom and peace. We only exercising a right inherent in all governwill suppress, however, the feelings of indig-ments, of determining who should be eligible nation which such productions, from such for office and who ineligible." His lordship men, naturally occasion. We will give the thinks the toleration complete, because he sees Bishop of Lincoln credit for being perfectly a permission in the statutes for the exercise of sincere; we will suppose, that every argu- the Roman Catholic worship. He sees the perment he uses has not been used and refuted mission-but he does not choose to see the ten thousand times before; and we will sit consequences to which they are exposed who down as patiently to defend the religious liber- avail themselves of this permission. It is the ties of mankind, as the reverend prelate has liberality of a father who says to a son, “Do as done to abridge them. you please, my dear boy; follow your own inWe must begin with denying the main posi-clination. Judge for yourself; you are free as tion upon which the Bishop of Lincoln has buil: his reasoning-The Catholic religion is not tolerated in England. No man can be fairly said to be permitted to enjoy his own worship who is punished for exercising that worship. His lordship seems to have no other idea of punishment, than lodging a man in the Poultry compter, or flogging him at the cart's tail, or fining him a sum of money;-just as if incapacitating a man from enjoying the dignities and emoluments to which men of similar con

A Charge delivered to the Clergy of the Diocese of Linoln, at the Triennial Visitation of that Diocese in May, Jane, and July, 1812. By GEORGE TOMLINE, D.D., F.R.S., Lord Bishop of Lincoln. London. Cadell and Co. 4to.

It is impossible to conceive the mischief which this

mean and cunning prelate did at this period.

air. But remember, if you marry that lady, I will cut you off with a shilling." We have scarcely ever read a more solemn and frivolous statement than the Bishop of Lincoln's antithetical distinction between persecution and the denial of political power.

"It is sometimes said, that Papists, being excluded from power, are consequently persecuted; as if exclusion from power and religious persecution were convertible terms. But surely this is to confound things totally distinct in their nature. Persecution inflicts positive punishment upon persons who hold certain religious tenets, and endeavours to accomplish the renunciation and extinction of those tenets

by forcible means: exclusion from power is entirely negative in its operation-it only de

clares that those who hold certain opinions shall Kind Providence never sends an evil witnou not fill certain situations; but it acknowledges a remedy:-and arithmetic is the natural cure men to be perfectly free to hold those opinions. for the passion of fear. If a coward can be Persecution compels men to adopt a prescribed made to count his enemies, his terrors may be faith, or to suffer the loss of liberty, property, reasoned with, and he may think of ways and or even life: exclusion from power prescribes means of counteraction. Now, might it not no faith; it allows men to think and believe as have been expedient that the reverend prelate, they please, without molestation or interfer- before he had alarmed his country clergy with ence. Persecution requires men to worship the idea of so large a measure as the repeal God in one and in no other way: exclusion of Protestantism, should have counted up the from power neither commands nor forbids any probable number of Catholics who would be mode of divine worship-it leaves the busi- seated in both houses of Parliament? Does ness of religion, where it ought to be left, to he believe that there would be ten Catholic every man's judgment and conscience. Per- peers, and thirty Catholic commoners? But, secution proceeds from a bigoted and sangui- admit double that number (and more, Dr. nary spirit of intolerance; exclusion from Duigenan himself would not ask),-will the power is founded in the natural and rational Bishop of Lincoln seriously assert, that he principle of self-protection and self-preserva- thinks the whole Protestant code in danger of tion, equally applicable to nations and to indi- repeal from such an admixture of Catholic viduals. History informs us of the mischiev-legislators as this? Does he forget, amid the ous and fatal effects of the one, and proves the expediency and necessity of the other."-(pp. 16, 17.)

innumerable answers which may be made to such sort of apprehensions, what a picture he is drawing of the weakness and versatility of Protestant principles ?-that an handful of We will venture to say, there is no one sen- Catholics, in the bosom of a Protestant legis tence in this extract which does not contain lature, is to overpower the ancient jealousies, either a contradiction, or a misstatement. For the fixed opinions, the inveterate habits of how can that law acknowledge men to be per- twelve millions of people?-that the king is to fectly free to hold an opinion, which excludes apostatize, the clergy to be silent, and the Parfrom desirable situations all who do hold that liament be taken by surprise ?—that the nation opinion? How can that law be said neither is to go to bed over night, and to see the Pope to molest, nor interfere, which meets a man in walking arm in arm with Lord Castlereagh the every branch of industry and occupation, to next morning?-One would really suppose, institute an inquisition into his religious opi- from the bishop's fears, that the civil defences nions? And how is the business of religion of mankind were, like their military bulwarks left to every man's judgment and conscience, transferred, by superior skill and courage, in where so powerful a bonus is given to one set a few hours, from the vanquished to the victor of religious opinions, and such a mark of in--that the destruction of a church was like the famy and degradation fixed upon all other blowing up of a mine,-deans, prebendaries, modes of belief? But this is comparatively a churchwardens and overseers, all up in the air very idle part of the question. Whether the present condition of the Catholics is or is not to be denominated a perfect state of toleration, is more a controversy of words than things. That they are subject to some restraints, the bishop will admit: the important question is, whether or not these restraints are necessary? For his lordship will, of course, allow, that every restraint upon human liberty is an evil in itself; and can only be justified by the superior good which it can be shown to produce. My lord's fears upon the subject of Catholic emancipation are conveyed in the following paragraph:

in an instant. Does his lordship really ima gine, when the mere dread of the Catholics becoming legislators has induced him to charge his clergy, and his agonized clergy, to extort from their prelate the publication of the charge, that the full and mature danger will produce less alarm than the distant suspi cion of it has done in the present instance?— that the Protestant writers, whose pens are now up to the feather in ink, will, at any future period, yield up their church, without passion, pamphlet, or pugnacity? We do not blame the Bishop of Lincoln for being afraid; but we blame him for not rendering his fears in"It is a principle of our constitution, that the telligible and tangible-for not circumscribing king should have advisers in the discharge of and particularizing them by some individual every part of his royal functions-and is it to case-for not showing us how it is possible be imagined that Papists would advise mea- that the Catholics (granting their intentions to sures in support of the cause of Protestantism? be as bad as possible) should ever be able to A similar observation may be applied to the ruin the Church of England. His lordship two Houses of Parliament: would popish peers appears to be in a fog; and, as daylight breaks or popish members of the House of Commons, in upon him, he will be rather disposed to dis enact laws for the security of the Protestant own his panic. The noise he hears is not government? Would they not rather repeal roaring, but braying; the teeth and the mane the whole Protestant code, and make Popery are all imaginary; there is nothing but ears. again the established religion of the country?" -(p. 14.)

And these are the apprehensions which the elergy of the diocese have prayed my lord to make public.

It is not a lion that stops the way, but an ass.

One method his lordship takes, in handling this question, is by pointing out dangers that are barely possible, and then treating of them as if they deserved the active and present attention of serious men. But if no measure is to

be carried into execution, and if no provision | people Catholics, than we should have of a cabiis safe in which the minute inspection of an net of butchers making the Hindoos eat beef. ingenious man cannot find the possibility of The bishop has not stated the true and great danger, then all human action is impeded, and security for any course of human actions. It no human institution is safe or commendable. is not the word of the law, nor the spirit of The king has the power of pardoning, and so the government, but the general way of think every species of gulit may remain unpunished: ing among the people, especially when that he has a negative upon legislative acts, and so way of thinking is ancient, exercised upon no law may pass. None but Presbyterians high interests, and connected with striking may be returned to the House of Commons,- passages in history. The Protestant church and so the Church of England may be voted does not rest upon the little narrow founda down. The Scottish and Irish members may tions where the Bishop of Lincoln supposes it join together in both houses, and dissolve both to be placed: if it did, it would not be worth unions. If probability is put out of sight,- saving. It rests upon the general opinion en. and if, in the enumeration of dangers, it is tertained by a free and reflecting people, that sufficient to state any which, by remote con- the doctrines of the church are true, her pretingency, may happen, then is it time that we tensions moderate, and her exhortations useful. should begin to provide against all the host of It is accepted by a people who have, from good perils which we have just enumerated, and taste, an abhorrence of sacerdotal mummery; which are many of them as likely to happen, and from good sense, a dread of sacerdotal as those which the reverend prelate has stated ambition. Those feelings, so generally diffused, in his charge. His lordship forgets that the and so clearly pronounced on all occasions, Catholics are not asking for election but for are our real bulwarks against the Catholic reeligibility-not to be admitted into the cabinet, ligion, and the real cause which makes it so but not to be excluded from it. A century may safe for the best friends of the church to dielapse before any Catholic actually becomes a minish (by abolishing the test laws) so very member of the cabinet; and no event can be fertile a source of hatred to the state. more utterly destitute of probability, than that they should gain an ascendency there, and direct that ascendency against the Protestant interest. If the bishop really wishes to know upon what our security is founded; it is upon the prodigious and decided superiority of the Protestant interest in the British nation, and in the United Parliament. No Protestant king would select such a cabinet, or countenance such measures; no man would be mad enough to attempt them; the English Parliament and the English people would not endure it for a moment. No man, indeed, but under the sanctity of the mitre, would have ventured such an extravagant opinion.-Wo to him, if he had been only a dean. But, in spite of his venerable office, we must express our decided belief, that his lordship (by no means averse to a good bargain) would not pay down five pounds, to receive fifty millions for his posterity, whenever the majority of the cabinet should be (Catholic emancipation carried) members of the Catholic religion. And yet, upon such terrors as these, which, when put singly to him, his better senses would laugh at, he has thought fit to excite his clergy to petition, and done all in his power to increase the mass of hatred against the Catholics.

In the 15th page of his lordship's charge, there is an argument of a very curious nature.

"Let us suppose," (says the Bishop of Lincoln), "that there had been no test laws, no disabling statutes, in the year 1745, when an attempt was made to overthrow the Protestant government, and to place a popish sovereign upon the throne of these kingdoms; and let of Parliament, that the ministers of state, and us suppose, that the leading men in the houses

the commanders of our armies, had then been midable rebellion, supported as it was by a Papists. Will any one contend, that that forwith the same zeal, and suppressed with the foreign enemy, would have been resisted same facility, as when all the measures were planned and executed by sincere Protestants ?" (p. 15.)

And so his lordship means to infer, that it would be foolish to abolish the laws against the Catholics now, because it would have been foolish to have abolished them at some other period;-that a measure must be bad, because there was formerly a combination of circum. stances, when it would have been bad. His lordship might, with almost equal propriety debate what ought to be done if Julius Cæsar It is true enough, as his lordship remarks, were about to make a descent upon our coasts; that events do not depend upon laws alone, but or lament the impropriety of emancipating apon the wishes and intentions of those who the Catholics, because the Spanish Armada administer these laws. But then his lordship was putting to sea. The fact is that Julius totally puts out of sight two considerations- Cæsar is dead-the Spanish Armada was de the improbability of Catholics ever reaching feated in the reign of Queen Elizabeth-for the highest offices of the state-and those fixed half a century there has been no disputed sucProtestant opinions of the country, which cession-the situation of the world is changed would render any attack upon the established and, because it is changed, we can do now church so hopeless, and therefore, so impro- what we could not do then. And nothing can bable. Admit a supposition (to us perfectly be more lamentable than to see this respecta ludicrous, but still necessary to the bishop's ble prelate wasting his resources in putting argument), that the cabinet council consisted imaginary and inapplicable cases, and reason. entirely of Catholics, we should even then have ing upon their solution, as if they had any no more fear of their making the English thing to do with present affairs.

These remarks entirely put an end to the being subject to any foreign power; and it is common mode of arguing d Gulielmo. What expressly said that the Bishop of Rome has no did King William do?-what would King jurisdiction within these realms. On the conWilliam say? &c. King William was in a trary, Papists assert, that the pope is supreme very different situation from that in which we head of the whole Christian church, and that are placed. The whole world was in a very allegiance is due to him from every individual different situation. The great and glorious member, in all spiritual matters. This direc: authors of the Revolution (as they are com- opposition to one of the fundamental princi monly denominated) acquired their greatness ples of the ecclesiastical part of our constitu and their glory, not by a superstitious reverence tion, is alone sufficient to justify the exclusion for inapplicable precedents, but by taking hold of Papists from all situations of authority. of present circumstances to lay a deep founda- They acknowledge, indeed, that obedience in tion for liberty; and then using old names for civil matters is due to the king. But cases new things, they left the Bishop of Lincoln, must arise, in which civil and religious duties and other good men, to suppose that they had will clash; and he knows but little of the influbeen thinking all the time about ancestors. ence of the Popish religion over the mind of Another species of false reasoning, which its votaries, who doubts which of these duties pervades the Bishop of Lincoln's charge, is would be sacrificed to the other. Moreover, this: He states what the interests of men are, the most subtle casuistry cannot always disand then takes it for granted that they will criminate between temporal and spiritual eagerly and actively pursue them; laying things; and in truth, the concerns of this lif totally out of the question the probability or im- not unfrequently partake of both characters.”— probability of their effecting their object, and the | (pp. 21, 22.) influence which this balance of chances must produce upon their actions. For instance, it is the interest of the Catholics that our church should be subservient to theirs. Therefore, says his lordship, the Catholics will enter into a conspiracy against the English church. But, is it not also the decided interest of his lordship's butler that he should be bishop, and the bishop his butler? That the crozier and the corkscrew should change hands, and the washer of the bottles which they had emptied become the diocesan of learned divines? What has prevented this change, so beneficial to the upper domestic, but the extreme improbability of success, if the attempt were made; an improbability so great that we will venture to say, the very notion of it has scarcely once entered into the understanding of the good His lordship is extremely angry with the man. Why, then, is the reverend prelate, who Catholics for refusing to the crown a veto upon lives on so safely and contentedly with John, the appointment of their bishops. He forgets, so dreadfully alarmed at the Catholics? And that in those countries of Europe where the why does he so completely forget, in their in-crown interferes with the appointment of bishstance alone, that men do not merely strive to obtain a thing because it is good, but always mingle with the excellence of the object a consideration of the chance of gaining it?

We deny entirely that any case can occur, where the exposition of a doctrine purely speculative, or the arrangement of a mere point of church discipline, can interfere with civil duties. The Roman Catholics are Irish and English citizens at this moment; but no such case has occurred. There is no instance in which obedience to the civil magistrate has been prevented, by an acknowledgment of the spiritual supremacy of the pope. The Catholics have given (in an oath which we suspect the bishop never to have read) the most solemn pledge, that their submission to their spiritual ruler should never interfere with their civil obedience.. The hypothesis of the Bishop of Lincoln is, that it must very often do so. The fact is, that it has never done so.

his lordship say to the interference of any Catholic power with the appointment of the English sees?

ops, the reigning monarch is a Catholic,which makes all the difference. We sincerely wish that the Catholics would concede this point; but we cannot be astonished at their The Bishop of Lincoln (p. 19) states it as reluctance to admit the interference of a Proan argument against concession to the Catho-testant prince with their bishops. What would lics, that we have enjoyed "internal peace and entire freedom from all religious animosities and feuds since the Revolution." The fact, however, is not more certain than conclusive against his view of the question. For, since that period, the worship of the church of England has been abolished in Scotland-the corporation and test acts repealed in Irelandand the whole of this king's reign has been one series of concessions to the Catholics. Relaxation, then (and we wish this had been remembered at the charge), of penal laws, on subjects of religious opinion, is perfectly compatible with internal peace and exemption from religious animosity. But the bishop is always fond of lurking in generals, and cautiously avoids coming to any specific instance of the dangers which he fears.

"It is declared in one of the 39 Articles, that the king is head of our church, without

Next comes the stale and thousand times re. futed charge against the Catholics, that they think the pope has the power of dethroning heretical kings; and that it is the duty of every Catholic to use every possible means to root out and destroy heretics, &c. To all of which may be returned this one conclusive answer, that the Catholics are ready to deny these doctrines upon oath. And as the whole controversy is, whether the Catholic shall, by means of oaths, be excluded from certain offices in the state;—those who contend that the continuation of these excluding oaths is essential to the public safety, must admit, that oaths are binding upon Catholics, and a security to the state that what they swear to is true.

It is right to keep these things in view-and

they were regarded by independent men of all parties and persuasions. The catastrophe, we think, teaches two lessons;-one to the timeservers themselves, not to obtrude their servi. lity on the government, till they have reasonable ground to think it is wanted; and the other to the nation at large, not to imagine that

to omit no opportunity of exposing and coun-tacle is the contempt with which their officious teracting that spirit of intolerant zeal or intol-devotions have been received by those whose erable time-serving, which has so long dis- favour they were intended to purchase,-and graced and endangered this country. But the the universal scorn and derision with which truth is, that we look upon this cause as already gained; and while we warmly congratulate the nation on the mighty step it has recently made towards increased power and entire security, it is impossible to avoid saying a word upon the humiliating and disgusting, but at the same time most edifying spectacle, which has lately been exhibited by the anti-a base and interested clamour in favour of Catholic addressers. That so great a number what is supposed to be agreeable to govern. cf persons should have been found with such ment, however loudly and extensively sounded, a proclivity to servitude (for honest bigotry affords any indication at all, either of the ge. had but little to do with the matter), as to rush neral sense of the country, or even of what is forward with clamours in favour of intolerance, actually contemplated by those in the adminisupon a mere surmise that this would be ac-tration of its affairs. The real sense of the counted as acceptable service by the present country has been proved, on this occasion, to possessors of patronage and power, affords a be directly against those who presumptuously more humiliating and discouraging picture held themselves out as its organs;-and even of the present spirit of the country, than the ministers have made a respectable figure, any thing else that has occurred in our re- compared with those who assumed the charac membrance. The edifying part of the spec-ter of their champions.

MADAME D'EPINAY.*

[EDINBURGH REVIEW, 1818.]

THERE used to be in Paris, under the ancient | upon the scene a great variety of French cha regime, a few women of brilliant talents, who violated all the common duties of life, and gave very pleasant little suppers. Among these supped and sinned Madame d'Epinaythe friend and companion of Rousseau, Diderot, Grimm, Holbach, and many other literary persons of distinction of that period. Her principal lover was Grimm; with whom was deposited, written in feigned names, the history of her life. Grimm died-his secretary sold the history-the feigned names have been exchanged for the real ones-and her works now appear abridged in three volumes octavo.

racters, and lays open very completely the interior of French life and manners. But there are some letters and passages which ought not to have been published; which a sense of common decency and morality ought to have suppressed; and which, we feel assured, would never have seen the light in this country.

Madame d'Epinay, though far from an immaculate character, has something to say in palliation of her irregularities. Her husband behaved abominably; and alienated, by a series of the most brutal injuries, an attachment which seems to have been very ardent and sincere, and which, with better treatment, would probably have been lasting. For, in all her aberrations, Mad. d'Epinay seems to have had a tendency to be constant. Though extremely young when separated from her husband, she indulged herself with but two lovers for the rest of her life;-to the first of whom she seems to have been perfectly faithful, till he left her at the end of ten or twelve years; and to Grimm, by whom he was succeeded, she appears to have given no rival till the day of her death. The account of the life she led, both with her husband and her lovers, brings • Mémoires et Correspondence de Madame d'Epinay.

3 vols. 8vo. Paris, 1818.

A French woman seems almost always to have wanted the flavour of prohibition, as a ne cessary condiment to human life. The provided husband was rejected, and the forbidden husband introduced in ambiguous light, through posterns and secret partitions. It was not the union to one man that was objected to-for they dedicated themselves with a constancy which the most household and parturient woman in England could not exceed ;-but the thing wanted was the wrong man, the gentle. man without the ring-the master unsworn to at the altar-the person unconsecrated by priests

"Oh! let me taste thee unexcised by kings." The following strikes us as a very lively picture of the ruin and extravagance of a fash ionable house in a great metropolis.

"M. d'Epinay a complété son domestique Il a trois laquais, et moi deux; je n'en ai pas voulu davantage. Il a un valet de chambre, et il vouloit aussi que je prisse une seconde femme, mais comme je n'en ai que faire, j'ai tenu bon. Enfin les officiers, les femmes, les Valets se montent au nombre de seize. Quoique la vie que je mène soit assez uniforme, j'espère