1829.] Affairs in General. 67 
of the Irish Channel, and are cheered by the smell. That the priests 
of any altar should accept the alliance of such men, would be wonderful, 
except for the knowledge, that the extremes of the circle meet ; that the 
rankest superstition is always nearest to the fiercest infidelity ; and that 
the popish priesthood, in all countries, are divided into two bodies— 
the sots who never inquire, and are, therefore, believers still in the 
whole mystery of Rome ; and the shrewd, who inquire, and are, by the 
thousand, infidels. These follow their common sense far enough to see 
that the whole Romish system is utter imposture: and there they stop ; 
scepticism is their master. The Bible has been prohibited to them, 
until they have lost all conception of its necessity. The long habit of 
darkening the understandings of the people, has made their own incapa- 
ble of the light ; and hypocrites and infidels they live, and hypocrites 
and infidels they die. 
Such is the notorious history of the higher orders of the priesthood in 
all the popish countries of the continent. In Ireland the priesthood are 
too busy with whiskey, sedition, and the exaction of their dues, which 
they wring from the wretched peasantry with as keen a gripe as ever 
avarice fixed on superstition, to have leisure for books ; the breviary; 
and Mr. O’Connell’s pastoral speeches, make up their literature ; and they 
believe in the miracles of St. Patrick’s crutch, and St. Senanus’s slipper; 
with as undoubting a faith as the most foolish of their predecessors, or 
Lord Shrewsbury himself. 
Yet even at Leeds radicalism did not carry all things in its own way: 
The protestant and loyal inhabitants, after unwisely suffering the fac- 
tious to make their preparations at their ease, grew indignant at the 
insult to their town; and insisted that if there must be a meeting, there 
should at least be appointed tellers, to save them from the sweeping 
scandal of some prejudiced booby of a chairman’s decision. 
This was agreed to. The meeting was held ina spot provided by the 
radicals, furnished with all the Irish labourers and beggars to be found 
far and near, and with the exact species of chairman, against which the 
protestants had protested ; a notorious pro-papist ; a goose of a manu- 
facturer in the neighbourhood : one of those individuals whom chance, for 
the sake of showing its power, now and then flings up into a seat in 
parliament. 
It is scarcely necessary to say that the compact was not performed ; 
that the protestant tellers were not suffered to count ; that the delibera- 
tive wisdom of the Irish labourers was the chief ingredient of the meet- 
ing ; and that the man of cotton twist, after puzzling himself for an 
hour to know whether he should say aye or no, at length yielded to the 
Irishmen, and declared for popery and liberty. 
Since our last publication, death has put an end to the hopes long and 
anxiously entertained of Lord Liverpool’s recovery. The public estimate 
of this noble person’s powers had been formed from an early period ; but 
increasing years added to the respect for his individual character. His 
character sustained him in the premiership : and it is to the honour of the 
English mind, that such a claim should have been so acknowledged. 
There was a general feeling of security in the principles of Lord Liver- 
pool, in his straight-forward honesty, his personal disregard of influence, 
and his sincere zeal for Christianity, that was more than equivalent to the 
triumphs of parliamentary eloquence, or genius in the council. While 
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