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THE CONTEMPORARY FRENCH NARRATIVE OF THE DEATH OF
BLANCHE OF BOURBON, WIFE TO PEDRO THE CRUEL, KING OF
CASTILE,

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LETTERS FROM THE CONTINENT. No. II.

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GENTLEMANLY EXPOSTULATION, OR A HARD HIT AT THE SECRETARY, 352

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WILLIAM BLACKWOOD, NO. 17, PRINCE'S STREET, EDINBURGH;

AND T. CADELL, STRAND, LONDON;

To whom Communications (post paid) may be addressed.

SOLD ALSO BY ALL THE BOOKSELLERS OF THE UNITED KINGDOM.

PRINTED BY JAMES BALLANTYNE & CO. EDINBURGH.

Also just Published,

BLACKWOOD'S

EDINBURGH MAGAZINE,

No. XCVII. for February 1825.

CONTENTS.

I. Lord Byron.-II. Morning.-III. Night.-IV. ToV. Sonnets, No. 1. Vanity. No. 2. The World. No. 3. Destruction. No. 4. Human Life.-VI. Thoughts upon Thoroughfares.-VII. Letters from the Vicarage. No. 3.-VIII. The Shepherd's Calendar. Class 5. The Lasses.-IX. American Writers. No. 5.-X. The Political Economist. Essay 3. Part 2.XI. New Series of Sayings and Doings.-XII. Works preparing for Publication.-XIII. Monthly List of New Publications.-XIV. Appointments, Promotions, &c.-XV. Births, Marriages, and Deaths.

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THE Roman Catholic Church has been famous for ages for its matchless skill in the management of its worldly interests. Human art never contrived anything so consummately perfect as its system for making the human race its abject slaves, and its clergy have hitherto seemed to be incapable of taking a single step touching their own benefit, which could be called a foolish one. The conduct which the Roman Catholic clergy of Ireland have lately been pleased to display, has therefore greatly astonished us. We suspect that O'Connell's drunken craziness is contagious, and that it has infected, in an especial manner, his spiritual co-adjutors; for these reverend people in rending the veil at this critical moment, which party idiotcy and profligacy had cast over the horrible impurities of their religion, have acted as some persons rarely act, however small may be their share of reason. Whatever this conduct may yield to themselves and their champions, we think it will yield to the empire at large some signal benefits. They have, for the present, effectually prevented O'Connell from becoming a party leader in the House of Commons, or his Majesty's Frincipal Secretary of State for the Home Department, and this is no light matter to Great Britain. They have rendered themselves and their religion the objects of the searching examinaVOL. XVII.

tion of the British people, and this can scarcely fail of producing much public good. We anticipate that the government, and the nation at large, will now investigate more thoroughly the principles of religious toleration, and religious liberty, than they have ever yet done, and this, we opine, will ultimately prove highly beneficial to both Great Britain and Ireland.

We think such an investigation is, at the present moment, imperiously called for; and we place this paper before our country, from the wish to contribute our mite towards its commencement. In offering some observations on the Roman Catholic Church of Ireland, we shall speak merely as politicians. We are laymen, and confess our incompetency for discussing matters purely theological. If we oc casionally glance at doctrines, it will be merely to trace their political bearings and operation. We have selected a subject that abounds marvellously in intricacies and subtleties, that is encumbered with all the misrepresentations and falsehoods which human ingenuity and guilt could heap upon it, and therefore we shall begin by citing sundry aged and self-evident truisms, to serve as the basis of our reasoning. On such truisms, please Heaven, we will ever build; common people cannot safely use any other foundation; it is only the architects of" Liberality" who can raise towering 2 L

fabrics on the bogs and quicksands of falsehood. We are, moreover, prohibited from wandering from such ground. In violation of the laws of discussion, we, who take the antiquated and bigotted side of things, have the onus probandi cast upon us, and are expected to verify every line by fact and argument; while nothing more is looked for from the men of "Liberality," the advocates of new and untried things, than assumption and

assertion.

Your free and glorious empire has two distinct governments. The first, which we will call the moral one, consists of good opinions, feelings, and habits; and the second, which we will call the physical one, comprehends what is commonly implied by the words, taken in their largest sensethe government. In looking at these separately, we will begin with the moral one, as beyond all measure the first in rank and value-as the exalted superior to which the other is but the menial.

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We invite you, in the first place, to look at man in a state of nature, and then to look at him in his highest point of civilization-to place on one hand the savage, and on the other, the profound statesman, the chivalrous hero, the accomplished philosopher, the spotless religionist, and the finished gentleman. Put intellect out of sight, and examine opinions, feelings, and conduct. Look at the triot sacrificing his fortune, and sheding his blood for his country-the man of honour parting with life to avoid disgrace-the martyr dying in the flames to obey his God-the man of honesty casting away opulence and rank, and embracing calamity and ruin for the sake of principle-the man of benevolence scattering around him his thousands for the benefit of his species;-and then turn to the appetites and deeds of the barbarian, to whom, though still a man, the brute is a superior.

Now, examine women in the same manner. Look at the enslaved, degraded, scorned, polluted, and loathsome female savage, and then turn to your lovely countrywomen. Contrast this wretched savage with the bewitching and spotless creature whom you compare, in respect of charms and virtues, with the inhabitant of Heaven-whom you worship, and for whom you die-who fills your dwell

ing with happiness-and whose influence, directly or indirectly, reaches every interest of society, to promote and adorn it.

In the next place, examine the sources of those amazing and miraculous differences.

The issue will shew that your constitution, laws, and public functionaries, are but subordinate, and, comparatively, unimportant parts of the mighty system which governs you. You have in fact, though not in name, another Constitution, another set of laws, and another body of public functionaries, which existed before them, which created them, which give them motion, which use them as instruments, and on which their value and vitality depend. Your three Estates are but the agents of the three Estates of Religion, Morality, and Honour,— Your Parliament for transacting public business, would be worthless without that virtual Parliament which creates proper opinion and feeling; your statutes to govern the body, can only be executed by means of the laws that govern the soul; and your public functionaries can do nothing without those functionaries who belong to the Moral Government.

The Moral Government has its own separate laws and legal functionaries. These forbid and punish idleness, debauchery, extravagance, lying, cowardice, covetousness, and numberless other pernicious vices and feelings which generate the worst crimes, and which cannot be reached by the laws and legal functionaries of the physical government. The parent, the master, and the superior, act as the spies and administrators of the laws, of the Moral Government, against the child, the servant, and the inferior. Class enforces these laws against class, and the community in general enforces them against every offending member. The child is flogged, the servant is deprived of bread, the man or woman is branded with infamy, and banished from society; these punishments are hourly inflicted throughout the whole community, by the laws and agents of the Moral Government, without the intervention of the physical one. The Moral Government created the physical one, not to serve as its deputy, but to act as its servant and protector; to obey its commands, and to do only such necessary things as it might itself be unable to do. The former

should govern the nation as far as possible, and the latter should only begin to govern when the former ceases. The power of the physical government must expand or contract, in proportion as that of the moral one is narrowed or widened. When the power of the latter shall reach its greatest height, you will obtain the maximum of liberty, greatness, wealth, prosperity, and happiness; these will diminish as it may diminish; its destruction must inevitably destroy them and your present physical government, and place you under a tyranny.

We are in these days stunned with clamour for liberty. How do those who raise this clamour seek to establish liberty? By utterly destroying the Moral Government, in the first place, and then by contracting the power of the physical one to the lowest point, in the second! They might just as well labour to erect cities and palaces upon the billows of the ocean ; and yet these people call themselves philosophers!

The philosophers of old acted differently. They first established severe morals, and then limited governments; they insisted that the latter could not exist without the former. Their wisdom is now matter of fact, and not of opinion. Whenever their moral governments fell, their physical ones instantly resolved themselves into despotisms.

The inhabitants of a country have as much to fear from the tyranny of each other, as from that of their rulers. They may be, as in Ireland, perfectly protected from the tyranny of kings and ministers, and yet they may groan under the more comprehensive and insupportable one of demagogues, robbers, incendiaries, and assassins. Nothing can protect them from the latter but the Moral Government; the physical one must resolve itself into a tyranny to reach it, and then it will be unable to afford the protection. Who can look at Ireland without exclaiming with the moralist-Wretched is that country which is only go verned by laws!

Your physical government cannot stand if it do not possess power commensurate with the immorality and guilt of the people. It is compelled to extend its power as the people extend their immorality and guilt; it is compelled to become despotic, when the

majority of all classes become immoral and guilty. A very few years since a large portion of the community became licentious and turbulent-eternal shame to those who rendered them so! What was the consequence? The power of your executive was increased, and your liberty was diminished to the precise amount of the licentiousness and turbulence. Do what you please, you cannot govern Ireland in any other character than as despots. If you establish liberty on one day, you must pass the Insurrection Act on the next, and then you can barely keep down rebellion; but you cannot reach the horrible tyranny of the incendiaries and assassins. The reason is, the people have, practically, no Moral Government. The parent rather compels the child to break, than to obey, the laws of this government; the servant has no master who will duly enforce these laws; the superior abandons the inferior; class will not govern class; the people at large reward, instead of punishing, those by whom these laws are violated.

If your labourer be idle and dissolute, he will not work; no one will employ him ; and he is a constant burden to his parish. If your tradesman be knavish and licentious, he ruins himself and his creditors. If your noble be profligate and unprincipled, he robs his tradesmen, and reduces his tenants and their servants to want. If your naval or military officer be vicious and depraved, he fights your battles to be defeated, or he turns his sword against you. If your man of talents be immoral, he destroys his talents by intemperance, or he employs them to injure the state. Your immcral elector votes for an immoral representative; your immoral juryman returns an unjust verdict; and your licentious and debauched member of Parliament, or minister of state, reduces himself to beggary, loses his reverence for the good opinions of society, becomes corrupt, betrays his trust, and sells his country to retrieve his broken fortunes, or obtain the means of gratifying his depraved appetites. If you reason from the individual to the whole of every class, you will not then have to be told, that the Moral Government forms the grand source of your national wealth, greatness, prosperity, and happiness; and that these must ever fluctuate with its authority.

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