though the repeal of them is required both by justice and policy, it is not within the power of parliament to repeal. This, lord Coke declares to be an impossibility to assert it, is treason to the constitution.

But, let the principle be conceded,-let it be admitted to be the duty of the legislature to preserve the protestant ascendancy, because, in consequence of the revolution in 1688, this has become a principle of the constitution :-Still,-if, according to all rational calculation, centuries must pass away after catholic emancipation shall take place, before there will be twenty catholics in the upper or forty in the lower house, what real, what substantial danger can be justly apprehended to the protestant ascendancy from the measure? Can this imaginary danger be put into comparison with the real dangers, the real losses, the real inconveniences of every kind, both actually felt and reasonably to be apprehended, from the increasing irritation and discontent which now exist and must increase among the large catholic population of these realms, and the morbid results of this irritation and discontent to the state?

Thus then, all the pretences for the continuance of catholic degradation are reduced to this ONE; and

4 Inst. 42.-And see 25 Edw. III. s. 6, and the very curious and interesting proceedings, Rot. Parl. 21 Rich. II. 50. 52. The record closes with this observation :

"N're S le roi apres avisement et deliberation avec les prelats "et clergie de son roiolme a bien entendu qu'il ne purra obliger ses "successeurs—rois d'Angleterre-par leur serment, ne par autre "roie contre la liberté de la corone."

"Our lord the king, after advising and deliberating with the "bishops and clergy of his kingdom, fully understands, that he "cannot bind his successors, kings of England, by his oath or "in any other manner, against the liberty of the crown."

when it is fairly set and fairly weighed against its certain mischievous and ruinous consequences,THIS ONE kicks the beam.

V. It also affords some comfort to the catholics, to observe that, though the majority in the house of lords against the bill is appalling, it is much less than has appeared on several former divisions.

VI. Finally, this majority, though numerically great, may be reduced to the expression of unity,here the prospect begins to clear.

Bringing down the presumptive heir of the crown to oppose their petitions, wounded the feelings of the catholics they are willing to believe that if it had been known how much it distressed them, it would not have been advised.

But, however afflicted,-they are not dismayed; they conceive, that the resort of their adversaries to such an extraordinary measure, proves that they found themselves in a circumstance of extraordinary difficulty: the Eos año unxavns,-the preternatural machinery, is never introduced-except in cases beyond human power, and never twice in the same drama.

Besides, they never forget that, in January 1792, Mr. O'Hara tendered a catholic petition to the Irish house of commons ;-that one person only,-Mr. Denis Brown, the very gentleman who seconded Mr. Plunkett's motion, voted for its reception :-that, on the 11th day of the following February, the petition was presented and rejected with marked indignity, by a majority of 208 votes to 23 :-that, on the 10th of the following January, the lord lieutenant in the speech, by which he opened the sessions of parliament, recommended the consideration of the catholic question to both houses of parliament; that, in the

following February, Mr. Secretary Hobart himself brought in their petition ;-that it was respectfully received and discussed;-and that a few weeks afterwards, that is,-within one year after the contemptuous rejection of Mr. O'Hara's motion,-the memorable bill for the relief of the Irish catholics, with scarcely a dissenting voice, in either house, was passed by the legislature.

Surely then, there is no rational ground for despair: "O socii comitesque !

"Cras ingens iterabimus æquor."-HOR.

'CHAP. XCVII.

THE PRELACY OF THE ENGLISH CATHOLIC CHURCH: -ITS CLERGY-AND ITS CHARITABLE INSTITUTIONS, SINCE THE REFORMATION.

IN the foregoing pages, the writer has endeavoured to present his reader, with a succinct account of some of the principal events in the history of the English catholics, from the Reformation to the present time:In this chapter he will endeavour to lay before him, I. A succinct view of the state of their hierarchy :-II. Their clergy:-III. And their charitable institu

tions.

XCVII. 1.

The English Catholic Prelacy.

WE have noticed the decease of Dr. Richard Smith in 1658: "On that event, the chapter," says Mr. Berington*, " gave an account to his holiness, "of the bishop's decease, and requested to know his

pleasure concerning the future government of the "church of England. He replied, I will not disapprove of your chapter; but, will let you alone "with your government.'-In the same year, the chapter dispatched Mr. Plantin, a new agent, to "Rome, to supplicate for a successor to bishop Smith. "His holiness, in compliance with their requisition, "promised they should have a bishop within seven "months. And how,' observed the agent, shall our church be governed in the interim?'-' Have you not a dean and a chapter?' replied the pope.” Still, during the thirty years which followed the decease of Dr. Smith, no successor to him was appointed. In the short reign of James the second, Dr. Leyburn was appointed bishop of Adrumetum, with ordinary jurisdiction over all England; but two years after his appointment, bishop Giffard, under the title of bishop of Madaura, was added to the hierarchy, and the episcopal jurisdiction of England was divided between the two prelates. By a subsequent arrangement in the reign of the same monarch, England was divided into four districts; and a prelate,-appointed to some Asiatic see, was nominated to preside over each, with an annual salary of one thousand pounds, payable out of the Exchequer. At the Revolution, the salaries ceased: but the distribution of the districts has continued to the present time. The northern district comprises eight counties; Northumberland, Cumberland, Westmoreland, Durham, Yorkshire, Cheshire, Lancashire, and the Isle of Man :-The midland, fifteen; Lincolnshire, Leicestershire, Huntingdonshire, Isle of Ely, Norfolk, Suffolk, Northamptonshire, Rutlandshire, Notinghamshire, Staffordshire, Derbyshire, Warwick

shire, Shropshire, Worcestershire and Oxfordshire: -The western, seven English counties,-Somersetshire, Gloucestershire, Herefordshire, Monmouthshire, Wiltshire, Devonshire, Cornwall, and the whole of North and South Wales :-The ten remaining counties, Kent, Middlesex, Essex, Hertfordshire, Sussex, Surrey, Berks, Bedfordshire, Buckinghamshire and Hampshire, with the Isle of Wight, Jersey, English America, and the West Indies, were assigned to the London district.

The appointment of vicars-apostolic was not, in the first instance, acceptable to the general body of the secular clergy. They presented to James the second a memorial against the appointment of Dr. Leyburn. Having been desired by his majesty to specify the difference between a bishop in ordinary, and a vicar-apostolic, they stated, in a memorial, that, "by a bishop, who is an ordinary, is meant one, who hath power of his own, or in himself, to govern the flock, over which he is set; and, while "he acts accordingly, he is not responsible to any, "or revocable at pleasure.

"On the contrary, a vicar is one, who hath no power of his own, or in himself; but only the use "or exercise of the person, who substitutes him; so that, what he does, he doth not by his own power;

but, by the power of the person, whom he repre"sents; to whom, therefore, he is, at all times, "accountable, as using purely his power,-by whom "that power and himself too, are revocable at plea"sure. Whence it follows, that a vicar need not be "a bishop at all, but in certain cases; and, although "he be consecrated, and is to have the title and “character of a bishop, yet, acting only in and by