been held up to view in its character of the second of the instruments of the exclusionary system.

Time and Place are as completely absent, as every object that comes under the denomination of person.-No:-nobody knows any thing about the matter: not even T. T. Walmsley, Sec.

Number of persons of whom God is composedthat God, whom, if St. John is to be believed, (John, i. 18-I. John, iv. 12) no one ever sawthis number is no less correctly known to the Reverend Secretary, than to the Most Reverend President. Number of the persons, over whom, on this occasion, the Most Reverend President presided-and under whom, on this same occasion, the Reverend Secretary officiated-this article remains, and for ever will remain, in the clouds.

All the while it is by this non-entity, in conjunction with so many other non-entities, that the Society with all its schools is governed.

In Report III. this paper is likewise reprinted. Reprinted, and, word for word, without omission, alteration, or addition, under the head of No. VII.

IV. Report II. pages 197, 198, No. X. Title, in the Table of Contents, Regulations for training Masters.-Title on the paper itself, Rules and Regulations for training Masters.

In this case, in the same form, or rather no form, as in the one last mentioned, the same

draught may be seen drawn upon the public, by the Reverend Secretary, for the requisite competent stock of ungrounded faith. Established by nobody, on no day, at no place,-signed by nobody, not even by T. T. Walmsley, Sec.,-not so much as garnished by the words NATIONAL SoCIETY-Central School-stationed at the head of the preceding paper, instead of a date, they stand, in other respects-these "Rules" or these "Rules and Regulations"-upon exactly the same imaginary ground as the Form of Certificate for Masters.

In Report III. pages 176, 177, under No. X. (by inadvertence put instead of No. VIII.) this paper stands reprinted word for word.

Of these Rules, the main body is foreign to the present purpose. Not altogether so either the Introductory passage, or the first of the Rules.

"The conduct and improvement:" it begins with saying" The conduct and improvement of "the Masters being objects to which the very par"ticular attention of the Committee” (viz. the imaginary Committee)" is directed, it is ordered

"That a book shall be kept, to be called The Report of the Masters, which shall be a faithful register of their conduct, and be laid weekly be"fore the Committee, during whose sitting every "master is required to be in waiting."

The case being (as, long before this, must, it is believed, have been clear enough to every body)

the case being, that no real Committee is ever sitting, how is it that, in this way, an intercourse is thus constantly kept up between two assemblages of persons-the one visible, composed of the Schoolmasters-the other invisible, composed of the illustrious, but never-assembled masters of those same Schoolmasters.

Another look, and you will see how it is:-i. e. how it cannot but be.-Somewhere or other in the building, conceive a room, called the CommitteeRoom-in that same building conceive another room, called the Waiting-Room: conceive, moreover, a third room, called the Secretary's Room. The Committee-Room is the supposed seat of the many-headed Idol.-T. T. Walmsley, Sec. is the High Priest.

When a Schoolmaster comes, he is ordered to the High Priest, by whom he is sent to the WaitingRoom, where he sits kicking his heels with his fellows. If at that time so it happens that a special order is to be given to him,-in goes the High Priest, shuts himself up with his invisible God,-takes his Godship's pleasure, and delivers to the bowing Master,— or, if his Lordship of London is understood to form one person of the godhead, the "prostrate" master, the result of it.

Do what I preach, and not as I do, is an old adage, put into the mouths of such Reverend Gentlemen as do preach.-According to the above rule, the book kept by the Masters is to be

"a faithful Register of their conduct:-of the con"duct of these same Masters."-Faithful?—In what sense and manner faithful?-In the same manner as these Reports, which are so regularly published by the Secretary, and for which, when published, he is at the motion of the Most Reverend President so regularly thanked?-Alas! no: but in the opposite manner. In the way of contrast, however,—should it ever happen to a copy of this work to meet the eyes of any one of these Masters, in the way of contrast the conduct of the real conductors of the institution might be of use to him. To the National Society's Schoolmasters, the peep here given behind the curtain may afford a lesson of "faithfulness,"-as the deportment of the Helots when in a certain state, was made to afford a lesson of sobriety to the children of their

masters.

§ VIII. Securities against Spuriousness-Cause of the Omission of them, Necessity and Design-not Inadvertence.

So many tokens of authenticity, so many instruments of authentication, so many securities against spuriousness. Of the use or value of these securities, is it that the authors of these Reports were unapprized or insensible ?-Not they indeed.

If in any case they have omitted to exhibit them, it is because,-with a few inconsiderable ex

ceptions, which will here be brought to view,in all cases, from first to last, in the case in question among the rest, they have found themselves unable to exhibit them: and the cause why they have found themselves unable to exhibit them isthat, without a glaring falsehood, these securities could not have been exhibited :-a falsehood, which, if uttered, would have been recognized as such-recognized by a number of persons so considerable, that all prospect of its remaining ultimately concealed from the eye of the public at large would have been manifestly hopeless.

The falsehood in question, in what then would it have consisted ?-Answer--In this: viz. in the assertion, that, on such or such a day, such or such an act received the sanction of a certain number of members of the governing body in question, styled The General Committee of the National Society,-assembled together in one room, in one or other of two characters, viz. that of Members of the General Committee acting as such (total number of these who had a right to meet, 52) or that of Members of one or other of the Sub-Committees, formed out of that same number, and acting under the authority of that same General Committee.

If, on any determinate day-say 1st January, 1813-the case was, that, on that same day, no meeting of the General Committee was held,-any portion of discourse, by which intimation were given, that, on that same day, an act of such