trinsically of the very same spirit that it ever was? Does any mortal doubt, whether if it were ever to regain an ascendancy of power, an uncontrolled dominion in this country, it would reveal the fiend, and again revel in persecution? When did ever the Romish church disavow, in the face of the world, any of its former principles, revoke any of its odious decrees, or even censure any of the execrable abominations, the burnings, the tortures, the massacres, the impostures, perpetrated under its authority? And look at its zealots even in Ireland; what is the spirit of its partizans? What is the language of its Doyle and Co. ?

If I had to preface a vote in the house with a sentence or two, it would be to this effect:-"I would urge this measure most earnestly; not that I can profess to feel this demand strongly grounded on a strict claim of right; for I believe there is essentially and inseparably in popery something of deadly tendency to the welfare of a state. That point, however, I deem not worth debating in the present case, where the measure comes with such an overpowering claim of policy, of expediency, of utility. Without adopting this measure, you absolutely can never tranquillize the people of Ireland. And to have Ireland

continuing in the condition in which it will otherwise continue, is an evil and a danger so tremendous, that any possible evil to be apprehended from the emancipation, is reduced to an utter trifle in the comparison. But what evil, what danger can there be to apprehend from the emancipation? Are you so dreaming, or so lunatic, as to fancy it possible that popery, whatever civil privileges were given it, can ever acquire an ascendancy or even any material power in the British state? What! popery attain to an overawing power, in spite of the rapidly augmenting knowledge and intelligence of the people—the almost miraculous diffusion of the Bible-the spirit of licence, and fearless discussion of all subjects—the extension of religion, and of dissent from all hierarchies-with

the settled deep, and general prejudice against popery into the bargain-and the wealth, power, rank, and influence, nine-tenth part of them, on the side of protestantism? How can you keep your countenances, how can you help laughing outright, while you are pretending to entertain any such apprehensions ?"

But what presumption it is, for a sitter in an obscure country garret, to be writing opinions about state matters to a sitter in the "imperial parliament!"

CXLII. TO THE REV. JOSIAH HILL.

Stapleton, June 22, 1827.

I went to pass a week or two with an old friend and relation, a physician, in order to take his advice about any thing remedial or palliative for the habitual weakness and frequent painful sensations of my eyes, which are failing sadly. It often occurs to my thoughts how my John and your James are quit of all these mortal infirmities, grievances, and apprehensions; no longer involved in the frailty of our animated, endangered, and perishing clay; no longer dependant for their knowledge, their activity, their enjoyments, on these organs of matter, no longer having their "foundation in the dust." But we shall not long stay behind; we too are fast advancing toward a separation from all these elements; let us hope and sedulously prepare to meet again, in a nobler economy, those who have already arrived there, and have carried our affections with them.

.... I have just declined, from conscious necessity and duty, on several accounts, a journey of three weeks through North Wales, with a little party of friends at Worcester, who kindly solicited me to take a seat in a young lady's elegant one-horse vehicle, herself the driver. Snowdon!

the grand chain bridge! romantic valleys, cataracts, castles, and all the rest! It would truly have been a vast luxury. But under the veto of ever so many causes combined, I am to see none of those things; some of which I did see about fifteen years since, in company with the person who is to be the leader in this new expedition, and who tells me he has never had the opportunity of inviting me under such favourable circumstances to renew the adventure, and thinks very improbable he ever may again. He is an admirable guide, and I am enthusiastic with respect to that enchanted region; but old conscience said "NO," in consideration of good wife's unfortunate health and imprisonment at home in this dingy place-of studious works sadly neglected, though promised to be done long since-of the expense of such luxury; and all this corroborated by a rheumatic affection of my back, which, were it to continue or become worse, would disable me for the climbing of mountains for the purpose of seeing the panorama.

I have the most unwelcome task before me of preaching in substitution for Hall on Sunday evening; he having consented, very reluctantly, to go to London to preach two sermons for the benefit of our Bristol Academy.

CXLIII. TO JOHN PURSER, SEN., ESQ.

Stapleton, 1827.

MY DEAR OLD FRIEND,-Unless Mr. Evans, who kindly offers to convey this, shall happen to name the writer, it will appear to you as from the hand of a perfect stranger. Nor can I be sure you will not say, that the case might just as well have been actually so, for any interest you can now feel in recalling to mind, that you did once know such a person as J. Foster.

One has, on some occasions in the long course of life, felt one could say, with perfect consciousness of truth, what one could not reasonably expect to be believed-all appearances being so directly to the contrary. The present is such a one; so that I shall have no just cause to complain, if my declaration that, ever since I left Ireland to this hour, I have retained a very grateful remembrance of my old friend Mr. Purser, and of his family; concerning whom I have inquired and heard, at intervals, from various persons that I have met with, through the long period of more than thirty years.

It would be a vain attempt to explain (and indeed I may justly suppose you would not at all care about any explanation), how then it could have happened, that I never, in any instance, gave any token of such regard as I am professing to have constantly felt. Having always been intending to write to you, and not long to delay doing so, I have sometimes thought there was some kind of spell or fatality in the case. In truth there is a certain strange power or tendency in delay to prolong and perpetuate itself. And after it has continued a considerable time, perhaps several years, there comes a feeling, that the matter of character is now quite a lost thing, and that therefore, the case can become no worse. Something partly similar has happened with respect to one or two early friends in this country, still living, held always in friendly remembrance, never visited in the remote places of their abode, and their last letters, of a date indefinitely far in the past, remaining unanswered. But this case respecting my two Irish friends (the senior and the junior), is by much the worst in my long but unimportant history. The mortification it causes me is such, that I could almost wish to be able to introduce myself-not as an ancient friend, little deserving to be remembered as such, but as a person who has just been very much interested in hearing a particular account of you from a lady, whose sister has been with you within the last year, and who gave such an account of you

that I thought I should have been much gratified to be acquainted with such a family. It recalled to my imagination, once again, with a vivid freshness, the interesting social scenes and circumstances of a period lying on the ascent of life, on the other side as it were, of a mountain which I have long since passed over, and am now descending as my old friend also is, far down toward the low, last tract of life. But the images so revived (which, however, have never faded), were in strong contrast, in many essential points, with those presented by the description of what I should find if I were in the same scene again. One important and estimable member of the family removed from the world; a younger one long since grown up, and placed in family relations far off from you; another, once my young friend and pupil, now in middle age, doubly a family man, and active in a sphere of business and various cares,— all this is so vastly different from the picture in my mind, that I have no power of thought to pass the one into the other, so as to realize this later form of the scene to my imagination.....

As to myself, you are not likely to have heard any thing scarcely of the course of my life, marked by none but common occurrences. Since I saw Ireland I have spent several years in some, and many years in other, parts of England; in Sussex-near London-near Bristol-at Frome-at a remote place high up in Gloucestershireand lastly, near ten years again near Bristol, to which last place I have always retained a partiality ever since I was at the academy there in my youth. In two of these places of residence I was for a considerable time a settled preacher as we call it,-at one of them, at two periods distant from each other; but in each instance was compelled to give in, by some kind of debility in the parts about the throat which rendered the constantly recurring exercise of public speaking difficult and painful. Always, however, up to this time, I have continued to preach occasionally. Just twenty years I have been a married man,