gation; or who, like the abbé Caron, could establish some institution, useful to his countrymen. Who does not respect feelings, at once so respectable, and so religious? Hence flowed their cheerfulness and serenity of mind, above suffering and want. "I saw "them," a gentleman said to the writer of these pages, "hurrying, in the bitterest weather, over the ❝ice of Holland, when the French invaded that territory. They had scarcely the means of sub"sistence; the wind blew, the snow fell; the army "was fast approaching; and they knew not where "to hide their heads, yet these men were cheerful." They did honour to religion;-and the nation, that so justly appreciated their merit, did honour to itself.

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The lay emigrants were chiefly composed of the provincial nobility. Their willing exertions to increase their small subsistence was truly honourable. With this view, magistrates became preceptors; painting, drawing, and music, were taught by ladies, who, in happier hours, had learned them for ornament; the son refused no occupation, which gave him the means of assisting his parent; the daughter was the maid of all work to her family. It is surprising, how soon they qualified themselves, in one form or other, for useful employments: none thought that a disgrace, which attachment to his king, or love of his religion, made necessary.

Having mentioned the edifying conduct of the French deported clergy, and French emigrant laity, during this dreadful æra of the revolution, it remains to make a similar short mention of the conduct of the emigrant nuns. The pious tenor of their con

ventual lives has been faithfully described, by the rev. Mr. John Fletcher, the roman-catholic pastor of Weston-Underwood, in Buckinghamshire, in the third of his learned, elegant, and instructive Sermons on various religious and moral subjects, a work expressing the doctrine and morality of the gospel, in the mild attractive language of St. Frances of Sales.

When the hour of trial came, the conduct of these pious recluses was uniformly edifying. On every occasion, they exhibited the greatest patience and fortitude, and an unconquerable adherence to principles. The French philosophers had unceasingly predicted, that the doors of the convents would be no sooner opened, and their inmates legally emancipated from their vows, than they would rush to freedom, marriage, and dissipation. Of this, there was hardly an instance; while the conduct of an immense majority invariably shewed how sincerely they despised both the blandishments and the terrors of the world, which they had quitted. Some of them braved persecution, and even death itself, in its most hideous form. On one occasion, the fatal cart conveyed the superior of a convent, and all her claustral family, to the guillotine. In the road to it, they sung, in unison, the litanies of the Virgin Mary. At first, they were received with curses, ribaldry, and the other usual abominations of a French mob. But it was not long, before their serene demeanour and pious chaunt subdued the surrounding brutality; and the multitude attended them in respectful silence, to the place of execution. The

cart moved slowly,-all the while, the nuns continued the pious strain: when the cart reached the guillotine, each, till the instrument of death touched her, sustained it. As each died, the sound became proportionally weaker at last, the superior's single note was heard, and soon was heard no more. For once, the French mob was affected; in silence, and apparently with some compunctious visitations, they returned to their homes.

Throughout their dispersion, the nuns retained undiminished their attachment to their religious rule. Whenever opportunity offered, they formed themselves into bands for its observance; and the insulated individual seldom failed to practise it, to the utmost of her power. Sometimes by succession or heirship, or from some other circumstance, wealth came in their way, but their spare diet, seclusion from the world, and regular prayer continued; and, what was not necessary to supply their wants of the first necessity, was charitably distributed.

That this picture of their conduct is not exaggerated, all must acknowledge, who have seen the religious communities, to whom the incomparable munificence of this country afforded an asylum. No one has seen them, without being edified by their virtues, at once amiable and heroic ;-few, without acknowledging their happiness.—Their resignation to the persecution, which they so undeservedly suffered, their patience, their cheerfulness, their regular discharge of their religious observances, and, above all, their noble confidence in Divine Providence, have gained them the esteem of all, who

have known them. At a village near London, a small community of carmelites lived, for several months, almost without the elements of fire, water, or air. The two first (for water, unfortunately, was there a vendible commodity), they could little afford to buy; and, from the last, (their dress confining them to their shed), they were excluded. In the midst of this severe distress, which no spectator could behold unmoved, they were happy. Submission to the will of God, fortitude and cheerfulness, never deserted them. A few human tears would fall from them, when they thought of their convent; and with gratitude, the finest of human feelings, they abounded. In other respects, they seemed of another world:-"Whatever withdraws us, us," says doctor Johnson, "from the power of our senses; "whatever makes the past, the distant, or the "future, predominate over the present, advances us "in the dignity of rational beings." It would be difficult to point out any, to whom this observation can be better applied, than these venerable ladies,any, who are more withdrawn from the power of the senses; over whose lives, the past, the distant, and the future, more predominate, or over whom the present has less influence.

CHAP. LXXIX.

PRINCIPAL PUBLIC MEN-STATE OF THE PUBLIC MIND AT THE TIME OF THE APPLICATION OF THE CATHOLICS FOR THE BILL OF 1791:APPLICATIONS TO PARLIAMENT FOR A REPEAL OF THE LAWS REQUIRING THE SUBSCRIPTION OF THE THIRTY-NINE ATTICLES.

BEFORE we proceed to relate the applications of the catholics to parliament for further relief, the subject seems to require, or at least to allow, that the writer should present his readers with a succinct view, I. Of the principal public men: II. And of the general state of the public mind, at this period, in respect to religious liberty in consequence of the Bangorian controversy and the disputes on the confessional: III. And of the attempts which had been made by the protestant dissenters to obtain a repeal of the corporation and

test acts.

LXXIX. 1.

Principal public Men at this period.

LORD NORTH was, at this time, the prime minister his eloquence was so far an æra in the British senate, that, what is observed by Velleius Paterculus of Cicero, may be said of him,—that "no English senator will be entitled to be ranked