320 Notes of' the Month on Affairs in General. QSept. 



the pen of any tenth-rate pamphleteer of the day ; and, obviously, as 

 dull and weak a dissertation upon exhausted topics as any thing in the 

 annals of newspaper correspondence. But we have more to do with 

 this disturber's mischievous maxims than his pitiful style. The princi- 

 ples of his " Letter" are thus analysed by the Warder, an able Irish 

 paper. 



" The maintenance of the laws, the prevention of crimes, the well-being of 

 society, are unworthy of the cares of a Christian legislature. 



" The residence of a protestant clergyman is a grievance inflicted on the indi- 

 vidual, because, not having the cure of all the souls in the parish, he should not 

 attend to those committed to his charge. 



" The Roman Catholics of Ireland having been gradually relieved from the 

 penal laws, until, at length, they stand on the same civil and political level with 

 Protestants — being, ' not almost but altogether,' the same in privilege, they are 

 in a worse state of slavery than any community of men in either hemisphere ! 



" The law sanctions tithes, and is therefore unjust, and to be vilified, because 

 it once sanctioned the slave trade, which it no longer does ! 



" It is criininal to coerce a government or resist the law, but perfectly innocent 

 to counsel that coercion and resistance ! 



" Property vested in a body, either by national or private endowment, and 

 held successively bj' the individuals of that body or corporation only in life trust, 

 is no property at all, and may be despoiled. This maxim is applied to the pro- 

 perty of the church ! " 



Dr. Doyle, with the common cant of agitators, denies that a property 

 which goes from life to life is any body's property. What will our 

 corporations say to this ? Are the " Fishmongers" immoi'tal .'' if not, 

 away their lands must go. Are the aldermen, men of nine hundred and 

 ninety-nine years each .'' if not, away go the City lands. And, in the 

 same style, must go the lands for the endowment of charities, schools, 

 and all establishments of the kind. Neither schoolmasters, governors, 

 nor trustees, have yet found out the secret of defying death, and all 

 their lands must be at the mercy of the Doctor and the state, until they 

 do. Such is popish logic. Very good, no doubt, for the old popish dream 

 of the resumption of the estates forfeited for rebellion two hundred 

 years ago ; but very unlike what we have been accustomed to call either 

 common-sense, common-law, or common-honesty. What is the church 

 but a great corporation, with lands transmissible from generation to 

 generation, for the purpose of sustaining a race of teachers of the people, 

 and differing from other corporations no more in its rights, than is to be 

 inferred from the superiority of those rights ; its higher office as the 

 depository of religious knowledge, and its older title, as being actually 

 centuries earlier than any other title to property in the empire. 



We have seen this anecdote set down as Neapolitan gallantry : — 



" The Duke of C — p — a, brother to the King of Naples, happened to meet a 

 young English lady at a ball, and was greatly struck with her charms. He con- 

 trived to cross her path in all her morning rides, and in one of these premedi- 

 tated accidental meetings, the prince presented his fair companion with his por- 

 trait, beautifully set in brilliants. On the other side of the miniature was an in- 

 scription, purporting the token to be wiS gage d'amitie, from the Duke of C — p — a 

 to the beautiful Miss ." 



The offer we call Neapolitan impudence, and the acceptance English 

 immodesty ; if even that be not too innocent a name. But how was the 

 " beautiful Miss Blank" left to run alone through ball-rooms ? Had she 

 no father to cane the generous duke ? no brother to kick the Prince of 

 Caprara ? 



