286 Leaves Torn out of a Common- Place-Book. [March, 



madmen, who are sound of intellect for the most part, but who live 

 under some preposterous illusion, which renders them, as to one point, 

 the maddest of the mad. 



The truth of Machiavel's maxim respecting the indelibility of na- 

 tional character is strikingly illustrated in our conduct M-ith respect to 



Catholic Emancipation. Years have now passed away since the absurd 

 and wicked invention commonly called Titus Oates plot, with regard 

 to which (take what historian's account of it we may), we can 

 safely assert that, with the single exception of the proceedings against 

 the supposed violators of the sacred images at Athens, no nation has 

 ever exhibited a specimen of such besotted folly, and crying injustice 

 as England did on that memorable occasion. On account of this ima- 

 ginary plot were the Catholics deprived of those privileges, from 

 which their descendants are to this day excluded. Some few years after, 

 a fire broke out in a baker's shop, and the greatest part of London was 

 reduced to ashes. Here again, recur to what historian we will, we 

 shall find all agreed in ascribing the misfortune to accident, and in 

 asserting that there was no evidence adduced in support of the mon- 

 strous declaration of the parliament, attributing the conflagaration to 

 the Catholics. We shall find all agreed in laughing at so inexplicable, 

 and so preposterous a charge ; yet is this charge recorded in the votes 

 of the House of Commons, and inscribed by authority upon a com- 

 memorative column, erected in the heart of our metropolis. Now 

 about a century after this, we have this same metropolis set on fire, 

 avowedly by Protestants, in hatred the of Catholics I ! ! 



We are now too civilized to burn or destroy; but mark the same 

 spirit, however modified by circumstances, in all its fullness of incon- 

 sistency. The commons of England had hitherto been the represen- 

 tatives of national prejudice ; but the peers have lately played their 

 part in this tragi-comedy. The commons pass a bill restoring the 

 catholics to those rights of which they have been so unjustly deprived, 

 and for excluding them from which there is no longer the excuse of 

 policy, and the lords in their zeal for the Church of England, fling it 

 indignantly over their bar ; the same lords, spiritual and tmiporal, who 

 had lately passed an act for giving full toleration to a sect which denied 

 the divhiity of the god whom they worshipped ! ! ! 



Some of the more reasonable will however say, we do not oppose this 

 question on religious, but on political grounds. Let us, then, simply 

 consider it on the simple grounds of expediency. All political writers 

 are af^reed, that there is no medium between full toleration and per- 

 secution. Either of these may, in certain circumstances, be a wise 

 principal of administration, and we are not at all prepared to impugn 

 the policy of Cromwell, when he bruised the Irish with a rod of iron, 

 and established among them his domineering system of government. 

 But to re-establish such a system, every one must allow to be impos- 

 sible. Circumstances have changed, and we have departed too widely 

 from this road to be able to retrace our steps; yet we would now seek 

 some by-way which good statesman never trod, that miserable track 

 which Machiavel has so justly stigmatised under the name of la via 

 del mezzo. We have given the Irish catholic freeholder the right of 

 voting at elections; but we will not let him be represented by the 

 catholic gentleman. That is, we have given him all the essential powers 

 of delegation ; have enabled him to choose the most profligate jjrotestant 

 member who will submit to be his instrument, and such instruments 



