" made of supreme importance in it; but, at the same time, I do not deem it impiety to oppose the Bill because it exalts their dignities, and must fall under the censure which Mr. Brougham passes on objectors as turning their backs on the Clergy, whom Providence has raised up to give strength and stability to the plan." With the leave of this gentleman, who is no better divine than statesman, (and that he is not perfect in that character needs no further proof,) the agency of Providence is quite as much apparent in the exalt her name, and debase her character; to clothe her with new attributes, and bring into jeopardy her very existence. Now, therefore, we, in our turn, must be permitted to speak of dangers, and to occupy ourselves with alarms: we must presume to warn and admonish; we must denounce, as enemies to the peace and liberties of the community most certainly, but as worse enemies, if it be possible, to the welfare of the Church, and the whole religious interests of England, those who first, by half-concealed stratagem, and now by more than half-declared aggressions, undermining, where they durst not assault, and attacking what they hoped to find defenceless, would wage war against the dearest rights of the people, for the purs pose of involving the clergy in trouble and shame, and lay society itself waste, in order that the Church might pass through the highest perils to the most certain corruption. Against the machinations of such men, we warn, above all, the wise and pious part of the sacred order to which they belong, and the temporal rulers, whose ears they may perhaps seek to gain, by promises of assistance and support. Distrusting both our authority and our powers of persuasion, we would warn both those classes, in the language of the most powerful supporter of the Establishment who was ever suffered to die unmitred-The single end,' says Dr. Paley, [Mor. and Pol. Philos. II. 305,] which we ought to propose by religious establishments, is the preservation and communication of religious knowledge. Every other idea, and every other end, that have been mixed with this, as the making of the Church an engine, or even an ally of the State, converting it into the means of strengthening or of diffusing influence, or regarding it as a support of regal, in opposition to popular forms of government, have served only to debase the institution, and to introduce into it numerous corruptions and abuses.""Ed. Rev. Nov. 1810. XVII. 86, 87. existence of the Dissenters, and their readiness to oppose a plan which confers power on the clergy, at the expense of the people's independence of conscience, and of the improvement and happiness of their families. It is not denied that in a wise and liberal scheme of public education, the Clergy might be made use of; but let it be ministerially, as in the proposed Unitarian Marriage Bill, and not as here magisterially, with an unlimited discretion, and an arbitrary, irresponsible power. The Edinburgh Reviewer says, that the Dissenters have been silent under greater encroachments upon their opinions and property: they did not oppose the grant of a large sum of money to the poor clergy, nor the vote of a million for the erection of new churches: but if they did not here oppose government, a writer of less shrewdness than this might have guessed that the true reason was very different from their satisfaction in these measures. Let the Dissenters, however, learn a lesson of zeal and courage from such reproaches. Their silence, they perceive, is interpreted into acquiescence. It becomes a precedent; and if they ever afterwards speak out, they are charged with inconsistency, and even with faction. To urge upon Dissenters, as the Reviewer does, the necessity of sacrifices for the public good, is in this case preposterous. To what are they to sacrifice, except to the complacency or ambition of the author of the Bill? They can give up only what regards their consciences; he has an easy surrender to make: his Bill is not essential to his own or others' happiness, and he may re-cast it so as to make it worthy of himself and of the great nation to whom it is proposed. The history of the sacrifices of the Dissenters is, in fact, the exposition of the loss of their liberty. By one concession they fastened the yoke of the Test Act upon their own necks and those of their children, and by another they lost, for a century, at least, the only probable chance of their emanci pation. Nothing would be more dangerous to the Dissenters than that the legis lature should presume upon their willingness to make concessions of conscience for the supposed public good. Were it allowed to proceed upon this principle, a very mistaken one, and one which no man could have adopted who knew the people to whom it relates, the present measure would speedily be followed by other and more fatal aggressions upon religious liberty.* But let not the Dissenters be alarmed. The Education Bill will in all probability experience the usual fate of schemes involving a compromise of principle; its author may alienate the Dissenters, but he has not yet gained over the High-churchmen: and the mass of the nation, standing between the two parties, will look with suspicion upon the political tendency of a project, the immediate and certain effect of which would be the promotion of clerical ascendancy. Are not then the people to be educated? is the question of Mr. Brougham and his Edinburgh advocate. Undoubtedly, they must be educated to fit them for the times in which they live and in the present eagerness of the public mind it is not probable that universal education can be long delayed. But, be it observed, that the alternative is not between this Bill and no national education at all. Other plans may be devised by which this great blessing may be secured, without bringing in such enormous evils as would render it a doubtful good. Of these the foundations must be placed in the opinion, the affections and the power of the people. And when any schemes of this liberal and comprehensive character are brought forward, it will be found that the Protestant Dissenters are not more jealous of their own rights and privileges, than anxious for the diffusion of all the means of knowledge and respectability and free Upon such a Bill as this, supposing it passed into an Act, how easy would it be for an intolerant, artful and daring minister, in some moment of general panic, to engraft certain prohibitory clauses that should be exceedingly onerous and vexatious to the Dissenters! Those that would object to a direct innovation upon religious liberty, might acquiesce in a regulation of it, in one instance, and by a mere amendment of one act of parliament: and nothing said, But that two-handed engine at the door Stands ready to smite once, and smite no dom amongst all classes of their coun- GLEANINGS; OR, SELECTIONS AND No. CCCLXXIV. Ancient Churchwardens' Accounts. The following extracts from the Churchwardens' Account in the Histories of 4to. are interesting, as illustrations of Lambeth Palace and Lambeth Church, the spirit of the times : "A. 1569. For ryngeing when the quene's majestie dined at my lorde's grace of Canterbury. majesty, in so unprincely a manner, "It might be at this visit, that her "A. 1586-7. For rynging, when the Queen of Scots was put to death, Is. 4d. "This article is a glaring mark of the spirit, or I may say, of the barbarism of the golden age of Elizabeth; and adds weight to the many proofs that have been offered of the artifices devised to inflame the people against the unfortunate Mary, in order to countenance the resolution taken to put her to death. Much dishonour does it reflect upon the character of Wickham, Bishop of Lincoln, if what is reported of him is true, that in his sermon preached in Peterborough Cathedral at her funeral, he used these remarkable words, Let us give thanks for the happie dissolution of the high and mighty princess Mary, late Queen of Scotland, and dowager of France.' (Bibl. Top. Britan. No. XL. p. 57.) But if a prelate could thus prostrate his sacred office, and a queen be capable of jesting, whilst she was signing a warrant for the execution of a queen and her own nearest relation, (Robertson's Hist. Vol. II. p. 168,) can it be matter of surprise, that the ringers of a country parish, situated not far from the palace of their sovereign, should consider the day of Mary's execution as a holyday, and exhibit their customary demonstration of joy!" REVIEW. "Still pleased to praise, yet not afraid to blame."-POPE. ART. I.-Lettre aux Electeurs du N recalling to our memories the La goire. But while he partakes, with his remaining associates, the obloquy which is cast upon all who have shewn their hostility to the ancient Régime, he stands unfortunately alone in the treatment he has experienced from too many from whom different conduct might have been anticipated. Fayette, Lanjuinais and others share with him, indeed, the calumnious outrages of the open advocates of slavish and corrupt principles; but they have not shared with him that neglect and indifference from men who call themselves the partisans of freedom, which it has been his lot to encounter. Those illustrious patriots are still looked up I actors in the scenes of as Of this number is the Abbé Gré f enslaved and impatient world—while Grégoire, whose career has been one of moral, rather than of military or political glory, was, in the moment of trial, abandoned (with one honourable exception) to all the fury of an asseinbly of political fanatics and religious bigots, miscalled the representatives of the French people; miscalled, we say, for France is too just to recognise their dishonest, their wilfully dishonest decision. We deem the reputation of the Bishop of Blois perfectly secure in the hands of posterity, but, at the same time, consider it as an act of justice to this venerable patriot to give his contemporaries a sketch of his purely benevolent mind by enumerating some of his principal efforts for the improvement of his fellow-men. Even in this country, where it might be supposed that our neighbours would be judged with that impartiality which, if unattainable amidst contending factions, ought at least to distinguish those who judge of notorious events from a distance, (for a remoteness from the scene of action, whether of space or time, seems necessary to correct and candid inferences,) this good man has not escaped the slanders of misrepresentation and falsehood; and this poison has been spread even by what is called the liberal part of the English press. One might have expected that at the Court of France, distinguished as it is again become for the minutest attention to all the forms and all the parade of Catholicism, something like sympathy would have been felt, something like justice would have been done towards the man, who, when Atheism, if we may so speak, was the religion of the Thuilleries, had dared, undaunted by the danger incurred by dissent from the established unbelief, to proclaim his unalterable attachment to Christianity. We might have reasonably hoped, that the man whose example, perhaps more than any other, had tended to uphold the faith of his country when it was scoffed at by her philosophers and trampled on by her demagogues, would have been treated with something less than malignity by a Royal House which professes such zeal for the restoration of all the outward observances of the Catholic Creed. To insult him-to traduce him, however, has been a sure passport of recommendation to a Bourbon. We should be wasting our time and that of our readers, in attempting the defence of such a character, if that were allowed by general consent to be an axiom which to us appears incontrovertible, namely, "That that man is entitled to the veneration of mankind, who has employed a long life in his private and public capacity in the endeavour to benefit his fellow-creatures." Yet so far is this seeming truism from being sanctioned by common opinion, that the instances are even numerous in which a life thus devoted has been the object of unmerited and never-tired detraction. We do not, however, recollect a more signal example than the case of M. Grégoire. M. Grégoire is a native of Alsace. The early period of his active life was employed in the ministerial duties of the priesthood, and it was not till he had attained a mature age, that he published the first work which made his name equally known and respected throughout Europe. This was his "Essai sur la Régénération Physique, Morale et Politique des Juifs," which was crowned by the Royal Society of Metz, in 1788, and procured him admission to that learned body. In England, where the Jews have long enjoyed something like protection from the laws, a plea for their toleration would not perhaps oppose the prejudices of the many, in the degree that would be felt on many parts of the Continent, where this much-injured race are even in the present day" so frequently the sufferers from popular violence. But among our neighbours it was a bold step to take in defence of the natural rights of man, when our author not only claimed for the Jews an unlimited freedom openly to profess their religion, but maintained the doctrine of their eligibility to the public duties of the citizen. The enlarged views exhibited in this dissertation are evidently the same that at a later period directed its eloquent author in his endeavours to obtain for his country, that first of blessings-quo nihil majus, meliusve terris Fata donavere-the blessing of civil liberty. He traces the causes of the degenerate character of the sons of Israel to their true source, the unceasing persecution of bigots, misnamed Christians, and anticipates, with a benevolence which is the spring of all his feelings, the happiest change in that character from the general acknowledgment of their natural rights in the Christian world. M. Grégoire was a member of the National Assembly at the beginning of the French Revolution, and was always found in the foremost rank of those whose moderate counsels, if followed, would have secured the lasting freedom of his country. At this time, Clarkson, whose name will always be coupled with the grand event of which he was the prime mover, arrived at Paris, and warmly engaged the "virtuous Abbé Grégoire" in the intended motion of the Count de Mirabeau for the Abolition of the Slave Trade. This, as it was a subject the most congenial to the feelings of this friend of universal man, ever after most deeply interested his thoughts, and has since been advocated in his work, "De la Traite et de l'Esclavage des Noirs et des Blancs, par un Ami des Hommes de toutes les Couleurs," another proof of the dedication of his mind to the great task of the improvement of his species. When the reign of Atheism, during which he had risked every thing for truth, was succeeded by the reestablishment of Christianity, this zealous prelate, in conjunction with his episcopal brethren, added his personal labours to his former example, for the purpose of eradicating the evil weeds of infidelity which had taken such deep root in France. The candour of these faithful labourers was not less conspicuous than their zeal. Among the books which they circulated, as one means of attaining their noble object, was Dr. Watson's Apology for the Bible. When the hopes of all good Frenchmen were disappointed in the failure of every endeavour to make their country free, and Napoleon had revived all the bad qualities except the legitimacy of the old monarchical despotism, M. Grégoire, with some others, received from the Emperor those tokens of his unwilling homage to virtue which were amongst the politic acts of his reign. He gave seats in the Senate to a few of the most independent men, whose characters had passed through the fiery furnace of the Revolution, and thus by the discussion which their opposition to his views occasioned, gave an appearance of freedom to the votes of this Chamber, which the overwhelming majority of his creatures entirely destroyed. The energetic resistance of this handful of patriots did, however, on some occasions, succeed in opposing the Imperial wishes. M. Grégoire used all his influence to effect the deposition of Buonaparte in 1814, and on his resuming the throne in 1815, was a resolute opponent of his ambitious schemes. The reward for his unvaried consistency and ardour in the holy cause of liberty has been given, it is true, in the applause of every good citizen of every country, and to his mind the approbation of the wise and good must be the most gratifying return for his unwearied labours of well-doing; but he has only experienced ingratitude from those whom he has most served, and it is melancholy to think, that some of his most malignant calumniators owe their very existence to his exertions during the horrors of the Revolution. Before we mention the particular act of his life, which has been the baseless foundation of the false accusation against him, we will enumerate the principal plans of which he was the author or great promoter during the progress of his country's troubles. With no ambition to gratify, but that of tendering his honest services for the good of France, and while her more aspiring statesmen, in their mighty schemes of conquest, neglected every department of policy which had nothing beyond public utility for its recommendation, M. Grégoire was engaged in forming establishments which will remain the monuments of his exertions as a citizen, when even the evils of the revolutionary wars shall have vanished. The French Board of Longitude and the Museum of Arts and Inventions were instituted at his suggestion; and on his report on the subject of Vandalism, and his eloquent plea on behalf of science and literature, he procured a grant of one hundred thousand crowns from the unlettered demagogues of the Revolution, for the encouragement of learning. He was a diligent member of the Agricultural Society of Paris, and gave the world a valuable report of their proceedings. He was one of the original founders of the Institute, a society which, from its birth, has held a high rank among the learned bodies of Europe: but from this society his name was struck out (as if men could be made learned by royal patent, or pronounced ignorant by a proclamation of kingly displeasure) by an arbitrary act of the present monarch in 1816-an act as illegal as absurd, but quite characteristic. Above all, his great talents and influence have been unceasingly employed in the most efficient plan of universal improvement in which human philanthropy can be exerted, namely, the extension of popular education. His penetrating eye saw that general knowledge would be infallibly accompanied by the spread of those liberal principles which he had so long and so well advocated, but which an ignorant people is unprepared to receive. The effects of this system, though so lately established, are at this moment felt in the remotest corners of Europe, and in them, and through them, Europe will find salvation. We have given but a slight sketch of the works of this good man; but we would now ask, Can the least sign of a wish to gratify any but the most virtuous ambition be traced in the above list of his claims for universal popularity? Yet this is the character that it is now required of every loyal Frenchman to hate, and which to revile is deemed an undoubted proof of peculiar public virtue. The alleged crime which has been the watch-word of attack is this—that he is a regicide-that he voted for the |