brother against the brother, of the servant against his master-a conflict which must end in confusion and destruction. If civil war be so bad when occasioned by resistance to Government-if such a collision is to be avoided by all means possible, how much more necessary is it to avoid a civil war in which, in order to put down one portion, it would be necessary to arm and excite the other. I am quite sure there is no man that now hears me who would not shudder were such a proposition made to him; yet such must have been the result, had we attempted to terminate the state of things to which I have referred, otherwise than by a measure of conciliation." The Archbishop of Canterbury led the opposition, by proposing the usual negative amendment, which was supported by the Primate of Ireland, the Archbishop of York, the Bishops of Durham, Salisbury, and London, Lord Eldon, the Duke of Richmond, the Earl of Winchilsea, the Marquis of Salisbury, the Earls of Harewood, Enniskillen, Falmouth, and Mansfield, and Lords Kenyon, Sidmouth, and Tenterden. Conspicuous among the converts were, the Bishop of Oxford, the Lord Chancellor, and Lord Goderich. The Whigs were represented by the Duke of Sussex, Lord Grey, Lord Holland, the Marquis of Lansdowne, and the new Irish Chancellor, Plunket. After four nights' debate, there appeared (including proxies), 217 for and 112 against the bill. In committee, Lord Eldon toiled in vain, either to mutilate or retard the measure. On the third reading, the Duke of Cumberland renounced for himself and his party all confidence in the Duke of Wellington, and the bill finally passed by a majority of 204 (213 to 109).

The final struggle had come at last. For fifty years the Parliament and people of England had been studiously impressed with the idea, that a mysterious, sacred objection prevailed with the supreme head of the State to Catholic emancipation-the reality of the obstacle was now to be tested. The Duke of Wellington had not scrupled to declare, in justification from the charge of having kept the public in ignorance of his intentions until the last moment, that it was because the King's consent was not till then obtained. Lord Eldon's Memoirs give a corroborative revelation of the royal mind. It is not very clear what the King's objection was-certainly, it was not that of his father and brother, a conscientious adherence to a mistaken conception of the coronation oath, nor a general regard for the stability of Protestant institutions. It could have been only a vague notion that one change must lead to another, and that any change must disturb his seclusion. There are many things disgusting in the history of kings— there is nothing more despicable than what we are about to give on the authority of the archetype of a loyal subject and conservative Minister. ["Life of Lord Eldon," vol. iii. p. 82, et seq.]-Before the bill left the Commons [March the 28th], the ex-Chancellor had an interview of four

hours' length with the King, which he has copiously reported in his journal. His Majesty opened the conversation with so palpable a falsehood, that Lord Eldon felt obliged to accompany his memorandum of it with an expression of disbelief-namely, that Mr. Canning had engaged never to let him be troubled about the Catholic question. He went on to complain of his present Ministers-that they had never shown him the bills that were now in process-that one of them was utterly inefficient to carry out the course he had recommended, and the other gave him the greatest possible pain and uneasiness-that "he was in the state of a person with a pistol presented to his breast," his Ministers having twice threatened to resign, and knowing that he had nothing to fall back upon-that they had twice talked him into a state of distraction, when he had said, “Go on." "He then repeatedly expressed himself," continues Lord Eldon, "as in a state of the greatest misery, repeatedly saying, 'What can I do? I have nothing to fall back upon;' and musing for some time, and then again repeating the same expressions." Lord Eldon at last ventured to ask whether his Majesty meant either to enjoin or forbid his considering some method of extricating him from this embarrassment. "He said, 'I neither enjoin you to do so, nor forbid you to do so; but for God's sake take care that I am not exposed to the humiliation of being again placed in such circumstances that I must submit again to pray of my present Ministers that they will remain with me"-not a word about the exigencies of the country, not a thought of aught but his own ease. When the Earl went again to present addresses—the day before the bill passed the Lords-he courageously told the King, that it was now almost impossible to interfere, as the measure had been carried to its present stage on the representation that his Majesty had fully assented, after full explanation of it to his Majesty. The King had said on the last occasion that it was only twice, and verbally, and when exhausted with conversation, he had assented—now, "he produced two papers, which he represented as copies of what he had written to them (his Ministers), in which he assents to their proceeding and going on with the bill; adding, certainly, in each, as he read them, very strong expressions of the pain and misery the proceedings gave him. It struck me, at the time, that I should, if I had been in office, have felt considerable difficulty about going on after reading such expressions; but... I told his Majesty it was impossible to maintain that his assent had not been expressed, or to cure the evils which were consequential, after the bill, in such circumstances, had been read a second time and in the Lords' House, by a majority of 105. This led him to much conversation on the fact, that he had, he said, been deserted by an aristocracy that had supported his father—that instead of 45 against the measure there were twice that number of peers for it-that everything was revolutionary everything

was tending to revolution-and the peers and aristocracy were giving way to it." Lord Eldon, dismal comforter as he was, agreed that matters were tending rapidly to revolution, but thought it only just to the ratting peers to say that they had acted in obedience to his Majesty's understood desire. Last of all, his Majesty bethought himself of the coronation oath, but even his old adviser could not counsel him to make a stand on that. So he fell again to bemoaning himself as miserable and wretched, with nobody to advise him—and then to threatening, "If I do give my assent, I'll go to the baths abroad, and from thence to Hanover; I'll return no more to England -let them get a Catholic king in Clarence or Sussex." "These," Lord Eldon adds, as though dissatisfied, "were the strongest appearances certainly of misery. He more than once stopped my leaying him. When the time came that I was to go, he threw his arms round my neck and expressed great misery." A few days afterwards he writes—“ (April 14th). The fatal bill received the royal assent yesterday afternoon. After all I had heard in my visits, not a day's delay! God bless us and his Church!" There was only one thing more to be done-and that was to spite the Ministers and their leading supporters by marked incivility at the next royal levee, which was accordingly done by this "first gentleman in Europe."

The price of emancipation, however, had yet to be exacted-" the almost extravagant price of the inestimable good," as Mr. Brougham said—namely, the disfranchisement of the Irish Forties. The bill for effecting this passed quietly through both Houses, the number of votes against it being seventeen in each-the majority 206 in the Commons, and 122 in the Lords. Mr. Huskisson and Lord Palmerston were among the few who argued against it as an unnecessary exercise of a questionable right. The Parliamentary Reformers assented to it, and even Mr. O'Connell was silent-or, rather, noisily endeavouring to divert attention. He had made no effort to take his seat during the discussion of the Relief Bill, and it was thought by many a meanness that he was personally excluded from so doing immediately on its passage, by a clause limiting the applicability of the new oath to persons returned after the royal assent to the bill. In the Easter recess, Lord Surrey, son of the Duke of Norfolk, was elected for Horsham, and was therefore the first Catholic member admitted. On the 15th of May, Mr. O'Connell presented himself to be sworn, but the clerk tendered the old oath, which he refused, as no longer required by law. The Speaker decided otherwise, and ordered him to withdraw. Mr. Brougham moved that Mr. O'Connell be heard in support of his claim; but it was resolved, after an adjournment of the debate, that it should be from the bar, and not as a sitting member. Mr. O'Connell accordingly spoke at the bar, and with such moderation as to astonish his hearers, who knew him only as the burly demagogue. The

House resolved, by 190 to 116, that he was not entitled to sit without taking the oath of supremacy. He requested to look at the oath, and after apparently deliberating upon it, said: "I see in this oath one assertion as to a matter of fact, which I know is not true; and I see in it another assertion, as to a matter of opinion, which I believe is not true. I therefore refuse to take this oath." It was then proposed to pass an act for his relief, in order to avoid the excitement of another election; but ultimately the issue of a writ for the county of Clare was agreed to without a division. It was not till the 30th of July-nearly a month after Parliament had risen-that the election came on. Mr. O'Connell was unopposed, but not the less did he avenge himself for the mortification of returning to his constituents without having taken his seat. His language was more outrageously violent than ever. The statesmen who had carried emancipation were abused without measure, and everything unpalatable about the concession was set down for speedy abolition. He now also raised the cry for the Repeal of the Union, and pledged his life to the achievement. The Catholic Association was revived in another form, the levying of rent was continued, and five thousand pounds were voted from the balance in hand for returning the leading agitators to Parliament. At the same time the county of Tipperary was in a condition of the utmost lawlessness, secret societies re-appeared, the Insurrection Act had expired, Parliament had risen, and the Government saw with dismay that the difficulty of governing Ireland had not ceased with the removal of that great grievance which had obscured all lesser causes of discontent.

Such is the eventful and instructive history of Catholic Emancipation.— We have seen the masterful will of Pitt, the persuasive genius of Fox, the arbitrary intellect of Castlereagh, and the eloquent advocacy of Canning, successively employed from the seats of Government on its behalf—and we have seen that all these were exerted in vain. We have seen, too, the growing spirit of English liberalism, represented by Brougham, and all the force and cunning of the Irish character, with the added unscrupulousness of a religion which dispenses with moral obligations for the attainment of desired ends, embodied in O'Connell-we have seen these engaged on the same side, but we can hardly say that they were more than auxiliary to its success. We have seen, on the other hand, that blind attachment to existing institutions and supposed fidelity to religion, most conspicuous in George the Third and Lord Chancellor Eldon—the childish dread of change, but stronger fear of unavailing resistance, so pitiably displayed by George the Fourth, but which probably actuated the majority of those by whom resistance was maintained till concession lost all dignity and conversion all honour-we have seen these, with the pride of the great soldier and the strong conservatism of the statesman, bending or breaking beneath the

imperious necessity of an unseen power. What is the lesson of all this? Is it not one at once of distrust and of faith. Pitt pawned his honour for the accomplishment of Catholic emancipation, and lost it-Wellington took office to prevent Catholic emancipation, and he accomplished it-O'Connell swore to preserve the forty-shilling franchise, and he quietly surrendered ityet who shall say that these men lied? There was a power above and around them, breaking the great heart, bending the strong will, taming the boastful tongue-a power that carried on the cause in spite of its enemies, and in spite of its friends. What was that power? Politicians say, the growth of public opinion-moralists talk of the inherent force of a just cause -the religious call it the providence of God. They are all right; for it is God who has established the law by virtue of which the right is ever tending to realization, and who teaches, by events, the blindest and stubbornest of men. "I have nothing to fall back upon!" was the wail of the miserable king-"The sun of England has set for ever!" was the less selfish lament of his old adviser. Poor men! Let us, reader-you and we, in the little perplexities of our private life, and in the nobler solicitudes of public concerns-learn from this intricate, humiliating story, that there is ever the encircling atmosphere of the Divine care to fall back upon, and that acts of legislature can no more prevent the rising of to-morrow's sun than lessen towards the next generation that Divine love which is shed on all the ages with impartial beneficence. Except history teach us this, it is, we deem, in the memorable phrase of Lord Plunket, "no better than an old almanack,"

CHAPTER X.

THE BISHOP OF PETERBOROUGH'S EIGHTY-SEVEN QUESTIONS-A NEW MARRIAGE ACT-AMELIORATION OF WEST INDIA SLAVERY-THE REV. JOHN SMITH, THE DEMERARA MARTYR-MR. BROUGHAM'S MOTION THE COLONIES, AND EMIGRATION-CRIMINAL LAW REFORM-THE COURT OF CHANCERY -PARLIAMENTARY REFORM.

We must return some distance on this track, so crowded with events, and bring up the topics that have fallen behind. First, we observe considerable excitement, in the years 1821 and 1822, of an ecclesiastical kind. On the 14th of June in the former year, Lord King presented to the House of Lords a petition from the Rev. H. W. Neville, who had appointed the Rev. John Green to a curacy in the diocese of Peterborough. The Bishop of that diocese (Dr. Herbert Marsh) was conspicuous for his High Churchism, and