them; that the real circumstances of their civil existence are not likely to be altered by tattling reports; that the exclusions of which they complain, however goading they may be to themselves, are substantial securities for retaining among the favoured few the honours and advantages which ought to be divided among the intelligent and worthy of all classes; that, therefore, they must no longer confide the hopes of their redemption to the zeal, real or pretended, of their supposed friends; that their views are not to waver, are not to be altered upon hearing a strong speech pronounced in their favour by the Opposition, nor by witnessing any wavering appearance in the hostile suavity of their ministerial opponents. Their case is as permanently fixed as the interests of their rulers can make it. Corruption must pass away, before any change cometh. The civil redemption of the Catholics will take place at the same time, and not before, the political redemption of the constitution. The determination of the ministry was said to be expresssed by appointing a young member of the Peel family to second the address, and by inviting another one to a seat in the cabinet. The first circumstance has taken place; it is to be hoped that the second may not prove equally true. As to the gentleman who was singled out for such a purpose, ho must be pitied even by those Catholics to whom he is thus obliged to offer his raw and inconsiderate opposition. It is sufficiently invidious in any Parliament, to have any thing to do with the opening speeches; it is a business of so graceless a character, that it generally devolves on some of the striplings, who have just arrived at puberty;

it is, as it were, the first orthographical experiment in the school of politics. What a spectacle of commiseration then does he present, whose face and tongue are engaged to mingle the sternest purpose of deliberative legislation, with those awkward and ungracious circumstances of inexperience and acknowledged fallacy? He may deem it at present an easy price for the purchase of influence; he may think, that to have his forehead used as the standard of unblenching, mute intolerance, is no great declension on his part. But if it be true, that his figure has been selected for expressing the hostility of the ministry to the Catholic claims, before he is ten years older he will reflect on the Parliament of 1819 with blushing madness. The blindness of puritanic fury no longer swells the eye-ball and destroys the vision; the people have found out that it is not from any dread that the Catholics may enslave and oppress the country, that the ministry continue the disabilities. They have found out, though too late to redeem the mistake, that the popular rights can not be infringed by this or that form of prayer or mode of belief; and even if danger really consisted in any one system of religion, the force of intellectual habits, and the arm of the law, are sufficient restraints for the preservation of preservation of social order. Experience has gone far enough to shew them that no people give up the enjoyment of civilization, of science and tranquility, for the probability of securing ascendancy in abstractiosn, of which they can make no physical and palpable use. If it were not so, if knowledge and social advantages enjoyed with perfect consciousness of their value, are

not enough to keep people from risking civil order to acquire religious domination; what would become of the public peace of Great Britain, wherein upon an average there is a different religion for every thousand souls, and the greater part of these creeds threatens the rest with everlasting reprobation?

If religious belief is a motive which in these times can command unhesitating obedience to its dictates, what will become of popular freedom, when so many of the sects denounce dancing, music, painting, and the luxurious arts (by which nevertheless most of them exist) with torments that shall endure for ever? This position cuts a miserable figure in argument, but it is perfectly despicable in practice, particularly in these realms; and yet it is on this limping antiquated prejudice alone that the Catholics can be excluded. It is impossible for any man whose education has been in the least degree attended to, conscienciously to believe that the public interests could suffer from allowing the Catholics an equal participation in them; and yet there are senators who are so mentally or morally degraded as to be able to come forward, and (in spite of the learning which has been wasted on them, and contrary to the virtues of that Christianity which has been so uselessly preached to them) pronounce without reason or qualification that the Catholics ought to be excluded. The question, as was observed before, is definitively, though yet not avowedly şettled in the public mind. The disastrous and harrowing experience of the last twelve years has proved, bitterly proved, to their amazement and despair,

that the government which is strong enough to oppress them, has no need of any auxiliary aid from the fanaticism of anti-popish zeal. A state which can at any time assume the power of arbitrary, secret imprisonment, and penalties, which can prosecute for religious libels men 'who never wrote any thing irreligious, which can starve unoffending nations into foreign submission, and kill men for crimes to the execution of which they have employed agents to invite them, such a state has no capability of becoming more depraved and despotic, even if the dungeons of Prussia, the code of Mahomet, and the morals of Machiavel's Prince could be added to it. All this is now become common and positive conviction with the common classes of society; and do the members of the Peel family affect wisdom for retaining and professing prejudices, the ignorance and cruel fallacy of which are now banished by bitter and incontrovertible demonstration from all reasoning people in the community? If they do, or if they only affect to do it, no vanity can be more monstrous, nor disgrace more degraded; a man might as well seek for honour and sagacious reputation from a dread of organ music, his suspicion of treasonable paintings, his antipathy to potatoes, or any other passion of equal dignity and of similar moral importance. It is a weak thing to be always complaining, even of tyranny; there are cases where it must be excused, and this is certainly one of them. There has been enough said, and more than enough done to degrade the Catholics; and there has been more than a just portion of submis

sion on their parts to obviate and appease the rage of cruel oppression from which they suffer. If the confiscation of estates, "putting mere Irishmen❞ out of the pale of the law, giving every man leave to rob Catholics of their horses, putting them to death for attempting to instruct their children; if prohibitions and cruelties, as monstrous as the deeds of Nero, endured submissively for ages, can not cool the heat of persecution; if peaceable demeanour, intelligence, social order, unquestioning obedience to the state; if all these things are ineffectual in exorcising the spirit of legislative persecution which yet grins hungrily upon the grave of the Catholic ascendancy, there are no sacrifices which can possibly lay it at rest. The Catholics have indeed gone to great lengths already in attempting to conciliate that which is now evidently irreconcileable. It is now confidently rumoured that a Bill was lately offered to the ministry in which of course, the most servile conditions must have been tendered; for there are few, even among those who profess the firmest affection for the powers that be, who would venture to offer any project without feeling some hope from its slavish stipulations; and yet even this was refused, and the person of Mr. Peel has been pushed forward as a mute, though eloquent assurance that the ministers are not disposed to treat. I do not believe that they ever will; there was a distant hope that they would be compelled, and that was but a "bastard hope" neither, having at least one leg sunk in the slough of corruption. I did hope, however, when some of these ru

mours were up, that the Catholic aristocracy were growing too many for the restrictive system; that the boroughs which they owned among them would enable them to break the unnatural pale which shuts out them and their brethren from a share of the common rights of society; and that if they could not entirely succeed in converting the Ministry to the Catholic faith, as was promised to Cardinal Gonsalvi when he was here, they would at least have the power of preventing any loss or disparagement to those who were of the same belief with themselves. How it will happen to them, it is impossible to say; but of one thing we may feel certain, that no Ministry after the present, except we should be handed over to the Saints exclusively, will be able to protract the sufferings and disgraces of Catholics. It is something worth living for, to see the end of this deadly valley; or, to speak within positive compass, it is something to hear the last statement of that diabolical logic, which argues the necessity of religious fetters and punishments in a state professing the utmost toleration. A lady, who is more skilful in rhyming and pleasantries than in philosophizing, has said, by way of a sidelong hint to Catholics, that a religion seeking for more than toleration, is ambitious. Very true; nobody I hope will deny it, any more than they will deny the right to feel and exercise a lawful ambi tion. But before she mentioned toleration as a boon, she should shew us on what ground of right, any peaceable form of religion could be prohibited, and on what pretences "of propriety a Catholic can be excluded from

offices to which a Dissenter, and even a Socinian, may be admitted. We live in times when there

is no necessity for pushing such an argument far. It is now perfectly felt, if not understood, that no man can equitably suffer loss, punishment, or exclusion, for his adherence to particular .sentiments, if they have no direct tendency to disturb the public peace, or violate the rights of property. How the Catholics are to come at those privileges, their right to which is growing more and more obvious, and promises speedily to abash the brows of the few opponents that are really jealous of them; and cover with shame the foreheads of those who pretend so to feel, it is not in my power to say. The particular evils under which they suffer, seem to be interwoven with the common stock of grieyances, for which the people have lately been seeking indemnifications. It is to be feared, that if the latter cause cannot succeed, where the interests are certainly more powerful, and the parties more numerous, that the Catholics have little chance of present success. They are more retired, their sufferings are less common, and therefore less pitied; and though a thousand times more oppressive, have yet been deprived of public sympathy, by the mandates of tyrant custom.

Before I take leave, however, I must notice the cheering prospect that is now opening to all those who like to see the social family strengthened in its attach

ments. I allude to the Protestant petitions in favour of emancipation, which are now forwarding from Ireland. Out of the very abyss of oppressionout of the deep, has Catholic Ireland called upon humanity, and she is heard. The cup out of which she has drank his bitterest draught of anguish is about to be dashed in pieces. She suffered enough from religious persecution, from the stabs of assassinating spies and informersfrom her wretched magistracy, and the other evils of oppression; but the instrument that cuts deepest, the passion which most fiercely inflames and festers the wounds of a depressed public, are religious dissention and animosity. There is, besides, no consolation for afflictions of this nature; foreign tyranny and state oppression cannot always be avoided, and are seldom really merited. There is, therefore, a forlorn pride left to such a peòple; they feel that though they are physically degraded, they are morally elevated; they have right on their side, according to an excellent vulgar saying. But there is nothing to brighten the misfortunes, no demon's back on which to lay the sins and consequences of those terrors which are inflicted from the brawl of intestine strife,

The rage of the war of the members, though more deadly

and develish than any other, cannot for a moment hide from the conviction the irretrievable discomfiture which must immediately follow.. What an illustration was Ireland of this twenty years ago! And now we see them mingling in one another's interest, as if nothing had happened. This is one of the best securities for the Catholic cause. It will be a great way towards emancipation to be able to back the demand with the wishes of the Protestants themselves. After that the business is light; the suspicion and obloquy which now molest them once removed, their hands are unshackled, and their tongues unloosed. They will then act with vigour, because they will not dread the restraint of reproach; and if they should not after all succeed, their deprivations will be more honourable when their conduct is justified by common and popular concurrence, than the unequal dominion of their oppressors wanting that garnish. I have gone too far, however, at present, to undertake a new division of the subject; I may return to it at another time, if there remain in your columns any room that cannot be better occupied. In the mean time I remain yours,

Jan. 21, 1819.

C. G.

Dr. Walmesley's Works.

MR. PALMER,

I have read with great pleasure the valuable "Memoirs of the Vicar's Apostolic" in your late numbers; and hope the writer of them will continue to furnish you with so interesting a communication; by so doing he. benefit, and his fellow Catholics will be doing you an essential

a real service.

I have not yet seen Mr. Butler's Memoirs of the English Catholics, although I have heard a great deal of them, as you have noticed most of the works which have been published by Catholics, or affecting them as a body; I hope you will give some account of the Memoirs, &c. in your next number.

The titles of the two following works of the late Doctor Walmesley, were given to me by a gentleman who was intimate with him; and as your correspondent does not mention them in his account of the works of that Prelate, I trust he will excuse my giving them to the public through the medium of your Journal.

1. DE INEQUALITATIBUS MOTUUM LUNARIUM Auctore D. Carolo Walmesleyo Regiæ Academiæ Berolinensis et Regia Societatis Londinensis Socio. Florentiæ 1758, e Typographio imperiali Præsidum permissu.

2. ANALYSE DES MESURES DES RAPPORTS ET DES ANGLES, ou reduction des integrales aux logarithmes et aux Arcs de Circle, par D. C. Walmesley, B. A. Paris, chez Babuty fils 1753.

On the opposite page in Bp. W's. own hand --This book was

published in 1749,

(At the end) Avertisement.