Page 89." Nor spare one scarlet rag from Babylon."

I should not have ventured on such an expression as this, but I find I am forestalled in it by one who was afterwards a Bishop. Thus inditeth Dr. Hurd to Bishop Warburton,-I thank you, my dear Lord, for your congratulations on my advancement to the Doctorate; though I doubt it will seem a little incongruous in me, to combat the scarlet Whore in her own habiliments.” "The Cope and the Hat," observes Fleury, "were a travelling dress which suited the Pope's Embassadors; and red was the colour affected by the Pope, and to represent him the better, the legates wore this colour also." On this passage Jortin thus remarks; His Holiness should rather have chosen some other colour than that of the great red Dragon, and of the Whore arrayed in scarlet." A latin line would have prevented Jortin's astonishment at this,

"Quos Deus vult perdere prius dementat,"

Had it not been for this infatuation, the Pope might have avoided the triple completion of another prophecy, by making some slight alteration in his title of "Vicarius Dei Filii.” One would have thought the coincidence sufficiently strong in two languages, without assuming that title in the third, which precisely contains the number of the Beast. As I have quoted Dr. Hurd at the head of this note, I shall quote a passage in another letter of his, addressed to Warburton. I quote it for the future edification of all curates, that they may learn how to condole with a Bishop, when he has the misfortune to make a little trip in his garden, or elsewhere.—

"And now supposing, as I trust I may do, that your Lordship will be in no great pain when you receive this Letter, I am tempted to begin, as friends usually do when such accidents befal, with my reprehensions, rather than condolence. I have often wondered why your Lordship should not use a cane in your walks, which might haply have prevented this misfortune;

especially considering that Heaven, I suppose the better to keep its Sons in some sort of equality, has thought fit to wake your outward sight by many degrees less perfect than your inward. Even I, a young and stout Son of the Church, rarely trust my firm steps into my garden, without some support of this kind. How improvident then was it in a Father of the Church, to commit his unsteadfast footing to this hazard! Not to insist, that a good pastoral staff is the badge of your office, and, like a sceptre to a King, should be the constant appendage to a Bishop."

Page 92.-"Ye tutored Pitt to bellow promise prate.”

I should never have obtruded my opinions on the Public, concerning Mr. Pitt, knowing as I do that by a certain party they will be anathematized as political heresies, had not this Minister been be-praised beyond all decency, by those who would fain identify with their voice, that of the Nation. This will not do. Mr. Pitt's dereliction of his first principles, and his falsification of al! the hopes he had held out, never can be palliated, much less forgotten. Reform was a subject on which no man promised more, when he could do nothing, or performed less, when he could do every thing. I do not say with Wakefield, that Mr. Pitt had no talents. He had great ones; but his warmest friends admit that Power was his end, if they were candid, they would add, corruption was his means. Amidst the exaggerated statements, and acrimonious recriminations of parties, the historian will find it no easy task to decide on the justice of Mr. Pitt's claims to the veneration and gratitude of his countrymen. There is one rule by which if he tries him his sentence must be a severe one indeed; particularly if the jury should be composed of those who think the happiness of the governed, a minister's most honourable acquittal, their

misery his justest condemnation. The following passage was written before Mr. Pitt was in being; I quote it because it so happens, that Junius has furnished the text, and Mr. Pitt the illustration:

"With regard to any influence of the constituent over the conduct of the representative, there is little difference between a seat in parliament for seven years, and a seat for life. The pros pect of your resentment is too remote; and although the last session of a septennial parliament be usually employed in courting the favour of the people, consider that, at this rate, your representatives have six years for offence, and but one for atonement. A death-bed repentance seldom reaches to restitution. If you reflect, that, in the changes of administration which have marked and disgraced the present reign, although your warmest patriots have, in their turn, been invested with the lawful and unlawful authority of the Crown, and though other reliefs or improvements have been held forth to the people, yet, that no one man in office has ever promoted or encouraged a bill for shortening the dura tion of parliaments, but that (whoever was minister) the opposition to this measure, ever since the septennial act passed, has been constant and uniform on the part of Government. You cannot but conclude, without the possibility of a doubt, that long parliaments are the foundation of the undue influence of the Crown. This influence answers every purpose of arbitrary power to the Crown, with an expense and oppression to the people, which would be unnecessary in an arbitrary government. The best of our Ministers find it the easiest and most compendious mode of conducting the King's affairs; and all Ministers have a general interest in adhering to a system, which, of itself, is suffieient to support them in office, without any assistance from personal virtue, popularity, labour, abilities, or experience. It promises every gratification to avarice and ambition, and secures impunity."

A Reform in Parliament therefore is among the desiderata which no thinking man can expect to see realized. This is a measure on the postponement of which all Ministers agree, however they may differ from their predecessors on other points; nevertheless they pronounce it excellent for all times but the present time; and for all administrations, except their own. I am led to conclude parliamentary reform hopeless, because it is certain that it cannot be effected without ministerial influence; and as certain that ministerial influence will always be employed against it. The splendid abilities of Mr. Canning were but too successfully employed, on a very recent occasion, to show how little the mere merits of any question in a certain Council availed; and he proved his point in a manner that reflected more credit on the speaker than on his audience; by adducing as an instance, the abolition of the Slave Trade. By the vast majority with which that question was ultimately carried, it fully appeared that there was a time when the little finger of a minister produced a greater impression, within the walls of St. Stephen, than all the eloquence of Britain and all the miseries of Africa!

"I like," says Walpole, "those Reformations that prevent Revolutions, by keeping pace with the gradual progress of reason and knowledge." I have heard that Mr. Fox, on his last visit to Paris, fully discovered that it was the decided opinion of the French Cabinet, that our most vulnerable point was Ireland; and that it would be the height of madness to make any serious attack upon England, until Ireland was wrested from her. If this be true, it furnishes another argument for the immediate removal of the civil disabilities of the Catholics; the present cause of so much disunion in those who govern, and of so much discontent in those who obev; but the ground of hope and confidence to all those "Who love not England's cause, nor England's weal."

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Page 95.-"And make Napoleon play both Knave and fool."

The Game must be desperate when Talleyrand throws down his Cards; and foul must be the play in which he blushes to co-operate. It is probable that the annals of Louis the XII. furnished Buonaparte with the model of his Spanish expedition. That indeed succeeded, but let him remember that Villany does not always prosper. Spain may teach Europe what it is that will satisfy the common oppressor; Not all the military and naval resources of a nation-not all its populationnot all its treasure. These he fully enjoyed, at the moment he was meditating the complete destruction of a sincere and generous ally.

From every thing I can collect from the remarks and observations of those French Officers who last arrived in this town, as Prisoners of War, I will undertake to say that Buonaparte's most unprincipled attack on Spain is a death blow to his popularity. The sad experience of battle after battle, and campaign after campaign, has now convinced his firmest veterans that they are doomed to serve a military Despot, whose lust of empire hath no bounds. These men now perceive that the life of a Soldier, under such a Commander, presents nothing but a barren and a gloomy prospect of perils and privations, to be terminated only by death. "Have we not seen," they exclaim, "our bravest companions sacrificed to the ambition of him who is as greedy of dominion, as he is prodigal of blood? Have we not beheld army after army coolly abandoned to inevitable destruction? Witness the parching sands of Egypt, the snows of Poland, the pestilent morasses of Domingo, and the dear-won fortresses of Spain! And for what are we covered with scars and polluted with blood? To render the name of a Frenchman execrable throughout the world; to aggrandize an ungrateful task-master, to forge his fetters, and to increase his slaves! Nor have our children a better prospect at home. They also are daily subject to be dragged away to the armies;