122- Literary and Philosophical Society. 



gies for attempting to benefit the people : the usual 

 course of things. 



Similar causes stirred up the politicians, and thus we 

 read of Thomas Walker, the Boroughreeve, chairman of a 

 Constitutional Society which was raised up in opposition to 

 the ' Church and King Club/ the true old Tories, the oppo- 

 nents of Jacobites. We have no very favourable picture of 

 Manchester society at this time. There were no reading- 

 rooms, libraries, or clubs for the evening, and few houses 

 which could contain invited friends as one must suppose, 

 since 186 public-houses made a political proclamation, 

 showing how much they owed to the discussion of politics 

 taking place there. This will tell no matter on what side 

 the proclamation leaned, although it is remarkable that 

 only one, John Shane's back parlour, was left for Jacobins 

 and dissenters. 



The great trial of Thomas Walker for sedition and the 

 failure to convict was a remarkable triumph (see Prentice's 

 ' Manchester ') of freedom, and the numerous arrests, as is 

 well known, ended in showing how little judges know or care 

 for natural law, and how much clearer are the heads of men 

 who have not been misled by the study of the artificial 

 devices too frequently passed by Parliament and called 

 laws, and which pervert the minds of lawyers. 



Whilst we are told that some inhabitants went to 

 Liverpool for peace, we learn that the opposition there 

 stretched even to the Literary Society, and the author of 

 the Italian histories, William Roscoe, and the writer of the 

 ' Life of Burns,' Dr. Currie, were, with the Rev. William 

 Shepherd and others, induced to give up their meetings. 

 This political commotion can scarcely be said to have ended 

 till the corn laws were abolished ; it existed, bursting 



