themselves!—No,-let us not wait for a Buo naparte to reform us; but in a National and free Council, and in union with our Bishops, with principles of Charity for the surrounding Sects, and with Loyalty and Love for a Constitution that stands unrivalled in the history of the world, let us calmly reform ourselves.

XVII. It is very natural, that persons who possess power should endeavour, at all hazards, to retain it, without submitting to any controul. Experience shews that men are never so artful, or so vindictive in the defence of just rights, as they are in defence of usurpation. I therefore do not wonder that the bigotry of ignorance, the jealousy to England, the Democracy of Revolutionists, and the Principles of Rebellion, and Separation, have coalesced against granting a limited Negative to the Civil Power in the appointment of our Bishops. On the contrary, I always foresaw that the most outrageous and opposite passions would confederate, in order to prevent any and every interference, which might tend to restrain the uncontrouled dominion of Maynooth, within the limits of just, and legal,

and necessary responsibility.—But though a Cobbet, or a Finerty, or any other Mendoza of the Majesty of the people, might be thus invited to a fraternal embrace, I little imagined that they would condescend to confederate with the Catholic Mitre, whilst they spurn the Catholic Cross! I little expected that men, who but a few days ago made Popery, Idolatry, and Slavery synonymous, and spewed into each others mouths all the rancid putrefactions of Theological indigestion, which have been so often vomited, and so often licked up, in the course of the last century, would now affect the come round, and be the Advocates for that very Popery which they so heartily abhor!But, strange! incalculable events have occurred in our times! Perhaps those good Men have been on a pilgrimage to the well of S. Winefrid! perhaps they are really converted to Popery! Saints! Innocents!-If so, I heartily congratulate them on the honourable places they will have secured for themselves in the Golden Legend, where one day will ever be memorable for the festival of

a Saint Cobbet, another for that of a S. Finerty, and a third for that of a S. Horne Tooke!

In the mean time,-is it, can it be necessary, after such lamentable experience, to warn our good Countrymen against that species of tub-preaching, that brawling of selfish patriotism, which is addressed by such men, not to the wise, not to the temperate, not to the learned, not to the sober portion of the community, but to the indigent, who always wish for a change, to the ignorant who are easily imposed upon, to the profligate who desire to level the barriers of the laws, to journeymen Tailors, Weavers, and Mechanics, who are anxious to become masters, without passing through intermediate gradations of industry and sobriety?

No man has more grossly or more illiberally abused the Catholic Religion, than this very Saint Cobbet, except it should be that classical and polite Countryman of ours, Doctor Duigenan, who is said to be the son of a Catholic Priest; or that most elegant, and most holy Divine, the compiler of the Anti-Jacobin, who rails at the Religion of the Jeroms, the Augus

tins, the Bedes, the Calmets, the Montfaucons, the Petaviuses, the Pascals, and the Mabillons, with as much ease to himself, as Punch does, when he pulls up the Waist-band of his breeches to prove, that Newton, d-n him, was a coxcomb, and Copernicus a fool!

The present mode of appointing Catholic Bishops in Ireland, hostile to the Canons, and to the Discipline and Spirit of the Catholic Church.

I.

T is well known to all those who are acquainted with Ecclesiastical History, that one of the Universal rules handed down from age to age, for the appointment of Bishops, is, that "no Bishop shall be forced on any Diocese without the consent of the Majority of their Clergy, and of the Representatives of the people."*

"Cum de summa Sacerdotis electione tractabitur, ille om"nibus præponatur, quem Cleri Picbisque consensus concorditer "postularit; ita ut si in aliam forte personam Partium se vota "diviserint, Metropolitani judicio is alteri præferatur, qui "Majoribus et studiis juvatur et meritis. Tantum ut nullus

The Spanish Clergy, who were always very tenacious of their ancient Discipline, but more particularly before the Moorish invasions in the 7th century, carried this rule somewhat farther. Knowing that he who can obtain a Mitre by private intrigue, will not stop at Simony, but will also privately tarnish the characters of those who stand in his way, they held a National Council at Barcelona, in 599, and there came to the following decision:-" Whenever a va

cant Bishoprick is to be filled, two or three "Candidates shall be elected by the Clergy "and the people of the Vacant Diocese, who "shall present them to the Metropolitan and "his fellow-bishops, and they, having first "fasted, shall cast lots, leaving the determina"tion to J. Christ.

Then he, on whom the lot

"shall fall, shall be consecrated."†

"invitis et non petentibus ordinetur, ne plebs invita Episco

pum non optatum aut contemnat aut oderit, et fiat minus "religiosa quam convenit, cui non licuerit habere quem "voluit." Leonis Magni Epist. 80, ad Anast. c. 5.

"Duobus aut tribus quos ante consensus Cleri et Plebis "elegerit, Metropolitani judicio, ejusque Coepiscopis præ