Of the language in which the Reviewer had expressed his indecent sneers, Dr Phillpotts says, "his observations on this matter are made in language respecting the quality of the late King's intellects with which I certainly shall not disgust the readers of these pages." Nor shall we. The Reviewer asserted, that "the oath plainly applies to the King in his executive capacity, not as a branch of the legislature; it forbids him either to hang men without judgment, or to attack the Church illegally; or to take from religion its lawful sanction, or to take from the Church its lawful rights." This is, indeed, most miserable stuff, yet we agree with Dr Phillpotts in thinking that it has a meaning. To attack the Church illegally, the Doctor observes, in this land of law and justice, would be beyond the enterprise of the hardiest reformer. The true mode of attacking it, must be to attack it by the law itself; and as in these days of triumphant liberality, there is nothing liberal which a sanguine reformer may not hope to carry through at least one House of Parliament, he has here abundant encouragement to attempt to sap the main buttress of the Established Church, the King's Coronation Oath. If his Majesty could be but persuaded, that this oath does not really prevent him from assenting to any bill presented to him by Parliament, however hostile to the interests or the existence of the Church, what might not be hoped for in the long run, from adroitly practising (what must sometimes occur) on "the fears of the brave, and the follies of the wise?" But we must extract, unbroken, the admirable reply to all this insidious nonsense. "Now, in the first place, in what chapter of the Constitution, in what page of the Common or Statute Law of the Realm, has Mr Jeffrey discovered this two-fold royal person an executive and a legisla. tive? The word person I use advisedly; for it is plain that Mr Jeffrey treats the most important faculty of the soul, that of conscience, as quite distinct in the legisla. tive from the executive. I swear,' says the King, that I will, to the utmost of my power, maintain,' &c.-But Mr Jef. frey tells his Majesty, that it is only the executive King, not the legislative, that has taken this oath !-After this exquisite specimen of ingenuity, his present Majesty may, I fear, be tempted to adopt the weightiest dictum,' as Mr Jeffrey calls it, of his royal Father, I hate all metaphy sics,-above all, Scotch metaphysics.' "But Mr Jeffrey is not without an argument in support of his distinction (when was there a metaphysician without an ar gument for anything?) The first promise of the Oath rides over the whole." This first promise is as follows-' I solemnly promise and swear, that I will govern the people of the kingdom of England, &c. according to the Statutes in Parliament agreed on, and the laws and customs of the same.' "Now,' says Mr Jeffrey, it is quite plain that this can affect the King only in his executive capacity-the second promise does the same ("I will, to my power, cause law and justice in mercy to be exe cuted in all my judgments." Therefore the third must do so likewise! Such is the logic of this aistinguished orator, critic, and metaphysician. "But without pressing the absurdity further, I will undertake to show, first, that even the first of these promises affects the King as legislator, no less than in his executive capacity.' Secondly, that whether it does so or not, nothing but utter ignorance, or the grossest disingenuousness, could have induced Mr Jeffrey to hazard such an assertion respecting the third promise of the oath, that which binds the King to maintain the Establish ed Church. "First, of the first. Till Mr Jeffrey shall be able to persuade the world, that to'govern a people does not include the notion of making laws for them,' he will, I apprehend, find few persons disposed to agree with him in the view he takes even of his strongest position. True, the King is to govern the people of this kingdom according to the Statutes in Parliament agreed on, and if the sentence ended here, there might be some small pretence for MrJ.'s construction of the first promise, but, unfortunately, there are some other words behind, and the laws and customs of the same,' i. e. kingdom of England. 6 "Taking these last words into the account, and viewing the whole passage with due consideration of the nature of the obligation, and the time, purpose, and design, of imposing it, it is plain that the King is bound thereby to refuse to concur in making laws, contrary to the existing constitution, and the fundamental laws of the land. That there are fundamental laws,' if not above the power, yet beyond the moral competence, of the whole legislature to rescind them, what Englishman will hesitate to affirm? what Prince, who has read the Bill of Rights, will refuse to acknowledge? None of the illustrious House of Brunswick, I am well assured; and if the two Houses of Parliament should be so reckless of their duty, as to present a Bill for the Royal Assent, conferring on the Sovereign an universal and permanent dispensing power, enabling him to tax his subjects without their consent, or any other atrocious violation of the principles of the English Constitution, the King would be the first to tell them, that by his Coronation Oath, by swearing to 'govern according to the laws and customs of the kingdom,' he is compelled for ever to withhold his assent to such a Bill. Will Mr Jeffrey be bold enough to affirm the contrary? If he will not, what becomes of his palmary, his only, argument for the wild notion, that it is in his executive capacity only,' that the King incurs the obligations of his Coronation Oath ?" ral propriety of surrendering up his own judgment, and deferring to the collective wisdom of that body of men in whose coun❤ sels he ordinarily confides." There is a Surgeon for you fit for a slave-ship! A pretty divorce this be tween the conscience and the understanding, the moral sense and the reason! The crowned King of Great Britain is not to be allowed the privilege of an Irish beggar, in a blanket tied round his carcass by a wisp of straw. George the Third-the father of his people-the Revered, and the Beloved The Protector of the Faith indeed, in all his principles, and all his practice-the King over a people glorious and free, in arts and arms, in war and peace,-the nation that took the start of this majestic world, and kept it too, to have his head patted by Parliament, into the breaking of an oath by Parliament imposed on all her Kings, and religiously observed by the Liberator, at peril of his throne and life, like a little child released by Mrs Trimmer from a promise not to eat any more gingerbread or gooseberries before dinner, and then sent out to guzzle or play! How unsuspectingly the simpleton prates abject and slavish submission of Kings to Parliament and Cabinet Ministers of the day! "The only doubt that can arise in the conscience of the Monarch on the subject is, as to the moral propriety of surrendering up his own judgment, and deferring to the collective wisdom of that body of men in whose counsels he ordinarily confides!!" And the Surgeon would tell him instantly to make the surrender "to the Collective Wisdom!" Suppose one "Collective Wisdom" were to say, By the by, Edinburgh has abso lutely produced a pamphlet entitled, "Answer to the Rev. Dr Phillpotts' Letters to the late Right Honourable George Canning," of which, as it takes the Doctor to task for the opinions he therein expressed regarding the Coronation Oath, we may here say a few words. It is a very weak, wellmeaning pamphlet but reminding one of a mild smooth-faced person, who for a long time sits in company without saying a word himself, or seeming to understand much of what is saying by others, and then all at once surprises you by beginning in a sudden fit of soda-water, or home made wine inspiration, very volubly to "reprobate the idea." The pamphlet was at first erroneously attributed to a clergyman of the Scottish Episcopal Church, resident in Edinburgh; but it is, we understand, the virgin essay, in the literary line, of a young Irish Surgeon, who, having cut up in the way of his profession, a few dead old women, leapt rather illogically from such premises, to the conclusion, that he could cut up a living" Sire, you are right in your interpre middle-aged man. Paddy avers that the King's conscience has nothing whatever to do with the Coronation Oath. "The idea of the conscience of the Monarch taking cognizance of the fitness of political securities, is perfectly unintelligible. It is his mind or intellectual fa-A culty alone that is employed for the purpose. All that the moral sense does or can do in this case, is, to inform him of the rectitude or error of his motives and intentions. The question as to the most efficient mode of fulfilling the royal oath, then, is simply a question of political prudence or expediency; and the only doubt that can arise in the conscience of the Monarch on the subject is, as to the mo tation of the oath." Is he thenceforth to confide in that decision, and strengthened by it, to adhere, to the death, to his own conscience? If so, then the British nation and this Irish Surgeon are at one; for the "Collective Wisdom" were with the King. If again another" Collective Wisdom" were to say, "Sire, you are wrong in your interpretation of the oath"Must the King then obey their injunctions too? and act in the teeth of " that other body of men in whose counsels he had ordinarily confided?" Is there one" Collective Wisdom," just as there is one Absolute Wisdom, (Alderman Wood,) or are design of re-establishing the Roman Catholic religion. Of these, the dispensing with laws was the most dan gerous, as the exercise of such a power would, of course, at once render the monarch absolutely despotic. Odious as such a power, however employed, must be to a free people, it was rendered still more so in this case, (as De Lolme has observed,) by being made the instrument of the subver sion of the Protestant religion. Of the famous "Declaration" of the Prince of Orange, when he embarked on his glo rious enterprise, it is surely unnecessary now to say more, than that it contains these words, "we have nothing before our eyes, in this our undertaking, but the preservation of the Protestant religion.' "That the Protestant religion, and the peace, honour, and happiness of these nations may be established upon lasting foundations." This Declaration was, as Dr Phillpotts forcibly expresses it," the hinge on which the subsequent great transactions were made to turn; "the principles and ends proclaimed in it were referred to as the guiding rule, the chart, and compass, by which the vessel of the state was steered in safety, through its perilous and obstructed course. And immediately on the appearance, and in express approbation of the principles contained in it, more than one public declaration was made, as we have seen, as well by the most distinguished individuals, as by numerous bodies of Englishmen. Passing over the proceedings in the first Parliament, we come to the ceremony of the Coronation Oath-the House of Commons attending on the next day to congratulate their Majesties on the occasion, when the Speaker in his address said, "that what completes our happiness, is the experience we have of your Majesty's continual care to maintain the Protestant religion; so that we can no longer apprehend any danger of being deprived of that inestimable blessing either by secret practices or by open violence." "Here then," says Dr Phillpotts, "we have an express acknowledgment, that the maintenance of the Protestant religion was the first object of the Statesmen of that day; and connecting this acknowledgment with the occasion on which it was made, and the plain allusion to the oath their Majesties had both taken, we cannot doubt that the intention of the Legislature which imposed that oath was thereby to bind the energies of the realm, by the strongest ties of religion and conscience, to the perpetual maintenance of the Protestant Church of England." Mr Lane enters into a concise, but learned statement of the reasons on which he rightly holds, that in the transactions of the Revolution are found ample grounds upon which the legislature of that day may be vindi cated from the imputation of having been guided, with respect to the exclusion of the Roman Catholics from power, by a narrow and vindictive policy: an imputation which (to serve a present purpose) has been openly, and also by implication, cast upon it by those who, on this occasion, as Burke said of other worthies, "desire to be thought to understand the principles of the Revolution of 1688 better than those by whom it was brought about," though, on other occasions, they are in the habit of appealing, in support of their own notions, to the provisions of that legislature, as manifesting the highest degree of wis dom, moderation, and foresight. The principle of excluding Roman Catho lics from the executive and legislative departments of the state, did not originate in the exigencies of that period, nor were the restrictions upon the influence of their religion designed to have merely a temporary operation. The exclusion of Roman Catholics from the throne, could then, as now, only be justified consistently on one principle, namely, that it is inconsistent with the safety of this Protestant kingdom (to use the language of the Bill of Rights) to be governed by a Popish Prince, or by any King or Queen marrying a Papist. What was the language of the address of the House of Commons, 20th December. 1680, to Charles the Second, which Mr Lane justly calls prophetic?" As the issue of our most deliberate thoughts and consultations, that for the Papists to have their hopes continued, that a prince of that religion should succeed to the throne of these kingdoms, was utterly inconsistent with the preservation of the Protestant religion, and the prosperity, peace, and welfare of the Protestant subjects." And here Mr Lane quotes a well-known sentence and a most emphatic one it isemployed by Lord Shaftesbury in the debate on the state of the nation-two years before March 25, 1678, prognosticating the mischief which would ensue from the accession of a Papist to the crown, and which did ensue on the occurrence of that event which he laboured to prevent. "Popery and slavery, like two sisters, go hand in hand, and sometimes one goes first, sometimes the other; but wheresoever the one enters, the other always following close at hand!" Hume (a philosopher, who, as Mr Lane justly remarks, like Shaftesbury, regarded religion only as a politician,) assigns, as the result of his observation, "the disadvantages of recalling the abdicated family, consist chiefly in their religion, which affords no toleration, or peace, or security, to any other communion." Though, however, it were admitted, that the Legislature of 1688 only confirmed a principle of government long before introduced, and that, in doing so, they regarded not merely the immediate dangers to be apprehended from the adherents of the expelled family, but the political tendency, in a Protestant state, of the principles of the Roman Catholic religion, still, could nothing farther be adduced, it might perhaps be urged, that there is not anything to shew that the exclusion of Roman Catholics from politi cal power was designed to be esta blished as a permanent principle of the Constitution. But the maintenance of this principle, namely, the exclusion of Roman Catholics from power, was an article of the express contract of 1688, and one of the conditions upon which the Crown was settled in the Protestant, to the exclusion of the Roman Catholic, line of succession. For the terms of this contract we can refer to those legislative enactments alone, by which the settlement of the Crown was made, namely, the Bill of Rights, as incorporated with the act of settling the succession of the Crown, and the several acts passed as circum stances required, in corroboration of the principle then laid down. The Parliament of 1688, by a new Act of Supremacy, formed by retaining as much of the old oath as exclusively affected Roman Catholics, at the same time that they extended to the Throne the principle of exclusion, deliberately confirmed the existing laws, disquali fying from the legislation, and other places of influence, all who "entertain scruples" of renouncing obedience to the jurisdiction or authority of 66 a foreign prince, prelate, state, or potentate within this realm." By incorporating, in one and the same resolution, these important provisions, affecting the sovereign and the subject, they stamped them with the same authority. Nothing can be better on this point than the following passage: "The strong terms used in the establishment of these provisions with reference to the permanency of them, afford no ground to charge the Legislators of 1688 with entertaining the absurd design of attempting to give by words an immutability to their institutions, of which, in the nature of things, those institutions were not susceptible. Their language is to be taken with reference to the remarkable circumstances under which it was used, and to the sub ject to which it was applied. They well knew that they could not, indeed, by the employment of the most solemn and emphatic terms, stay the hand of innovation in after times. But they could, and they did, thereby render the enactments comprised, expressly or by implication, within the articles of that compact, fundamental Laws of the Constitution. Future Legislators might adopt principles opposed to those upon which they acted; future Sovereigns might reign by another tenure than that which they instituted; but it was for them to mark in indelible characters upon the records of the Revolution, a warning which should go down with their institutions to posterity:-that, should any of those fundamental laws be abolished, the character of the Constitution would be changed, and the compact of the Revolution be at an end!" In the Act of Settlement, (after confirming the law for excluding Papists from the Throne,) it is enacted that every king and queen who shall succeed to the Crown by virtue thereof," shall have the Coronation Oath administer→ ed to him, or her, or them, at their respective coronations, according to the act for establishing the Coronation Oath, and shall make, subscribe, and repeat the declaration (against Popery) in the Bill of Rights.' Now, in thus coupling the Coronation Oath with the declaration against Popery, is it possible to doubt that they can intend to refer to the same objects, and were designed to have, in one important particular, the same operation, namely, to render the Crown a barrier against the encroachments of Popery? Mr Lane has some acute remarks, in a note, respecting the declaration against Popery→→→→ *It may here occur to the reader, that in none of the claims yet made by the Roman Catholics for unlimited concession, has the exclusion of persons of that communion from the Throne, on account of their religious tenets, been touched upon as a grievance; and that it has been frequently declared by the advocates of those claims in Parliament, that the concession of them would in no degree affect the provisions for securing the Protestant succession. But let us suppose members of Par liament to be exempted from this and other tests against Popery; how long does any rational person suppose that this declara tion would remain in force as regards the Sovereign? Would it not then be urged with great force, that when this Royal Test was required to be taken before the two Houses of Parliament, it was contemplated that it would be taken in an assem. bly of Protestants only, and that it is not to be endured that men should be subjected in this liberal age to the pain of ha ving their religion thus stigmatized in their presence? an annoyance to which the Le gislature of 1688 obviously never intended Roman Catholics to be subjected. Before the next accession, doubtless this remain ing barrier,the issue of the deliberate thoughts and consultations' of former Par liaments, and established at the Revolution as absolutely essential to the peace and security of this Protestant kingdom,' would be removed! To save appearances, some other form, with many holiday and lady terms, as efficacious as the tests in use before this declaration was framed, would perhaps be substituted; and the principle of a Protestant succession be left (as the Church of England would have been left by the Bill proposed in 1825) to the security of the preamble of the Act of Parliament, in the body of which the ex isting security would be repealed!" Now, we ask, is the Coronation Oath what Lord Liverpool chose to call it, a bugbear? George the Third was not afraid of bugbears. He had too true a British soul for that too clear a conscience. We shall not say that no King of England could grant the Catholic claims without violating his Coronation Oath. It is a case of conscience. If, on consulting his conscience, often and long, and seeking to enlighten it by all discourse of reason with man, and all prayer to God, a King of England should-with the holiest reverence of his Coronation Oath-the most awful oath that ever fell from the lips of the Lord's anoint ed grant the Catholic claims to their 1 fullest extent, we should feel that a fatal blow had been struck at the heart of the well-being of Britain→→ but we should feel still that the King did right. But this much is clear as day, that neither honest and enlight ened king, nor honest and enlightened subject, can think that it is an easy thing to come to that conclusion that little difficulties with which any be surrounded, can be all brushed the interpretation of the oath may away like old cobwebs, by the reckless and unhallowed hands of temporizing, say at once pettifogging lawyers. King William felt that oath rounding his temples" withrean awful weight; and had he tampered with its almost ineffable sanctity, he would have speedily been dismissed on the heels of the Abdicated, and reduced back again into the Prince of Orange. Times indeed are different - but times are also the same. The Tree of British Liberty the oak in whose shadow dethroned monarchs have slept, till their restoration to their thrones, in foreign lands has flung out more gigantic limbs, and its trunk is more tower-like. But its sap is the same→→→ and rough and thick as is its vener able rind, and enclosed within the sacred pale planted around it by the wisdom of those who dropt it of old an acorn into the soil, that has sent up that Glory to the sun, it may be perforated and drilled through by foolish foresters seeking, perhaps, as they say, but to revivify-till the plague of poison penetrate to the heart, and in far less time-many, many centuries less than it took to grow up into the monarch of all the woodsy will it decay, while weeping Liberty, ere she leave the land, will inscribe on the stem, "Magni stat nominis umbra." Let no man, then, who has the heart and soul of an Englishman, the conscience of a Christian, dare to degrade himself by talking of the bigoted prejudices of King George the Third on the subject of his own Coronation Oath. It is easy for paltry persons who break their word, either in letter or spirit, on every occasion that suits their interest or convenience, to turn up their lips and noses at a king's Coronation Oath. The creatures havé only for a moment to imagine themselves, by the grace of God, King of |