some formal difference was prepared, and received the sanction of the legislature is the same session. Mr. Bentham, who was in search for some criminating matter, is rather disappointed that no marks of bigotry or intolerance could be found in the conduct of the Archbishop of Canterbury throughout the transaction; but so explicit is Mr. Smith's declaration of the uniform frankness and liberality' of his Grace, that our author, notwithstanding all his ingenuity in the detection of latent bad motives, is not able to impeach it. He consoles himself, however, by indulging his vituperative propensities upon the two learned lords who effected the alteration in the bill, and very philosophically conjectures that they threw out the first bill for the sake of some additional fees that might be payable on the introduction of the second. After thus displaying his knowledge of the springs of action,' he steps aside to mention Lord Ellenborough's act, by which, in the true Draco style, a bounty is given upon murder;' and to hint at the causes that make our statute law so voluminous and so bad. All legislation, he says, is done under the direction of those whose interest it is that it should be as badly done as possible. Uncognoscibility being the end, indistinctness, voluminousness, confusion, uncertainty, are so many means.' He next renews his attacks on his old enemy, 'sham law, commonly called common law,' and tries to convince his correspondent, that though he has removed the statutes so obnoxious to Sociuians, he has still no security for the toleration of his religious tenets, that he is still kept in hot water,' and is likely to be persecuted, and ground to powder' by the piety of the common law.' Know you not, sir, in a word, that wheresoever common law reigns, security--whether it be for life, liberty, property, or any thing else is an empty name?' If our author has not somewhat exaggerated the terrors of the law, it is surprising that he should have contrived to preserve his life from its ravages so long, and still more surprising that he should subject himself to it any longer than he can help..

Mr. Bentham now enters upon the consideration of the Church Catechism, which is here termed a 'sub-substitute for the Bible.' A great many pages are devoted to a particular discussion of its demerits. We shall not disgust our readers with any specimens of the wretched and impious sophistry with which its expressions and doctrines are criticized. The faults which Mr. Bentham has detected in it, he classes, with his usual regularity, under five general heads, and shews that, besides the minor offences of bad grammar and bad logic, this pestiferous compound' inculcates the practice of hypocrisy, lying, imposition, sin and vice in every other shape.' And he calls upon the rulers of the Church of England' to give

it

up, and to cease acting in the character of suborners of juvenile mendacity.'

Unfortunately, however, our clergy have a strong attachment to this formulary, and insist upon teaching it in the schools over which they preside, partly, it seems, because they find it an able assistant in the propagation of insincerity, their darling vice, and partly because it is of service in the hostilities which our author has discovered they have long meditated and are now carrying on against the Bible. To keep the Bible as much as may be out of sight, is a policy, which, as far as circumstances have admitted, has ever been pursued in common, by Church of Romanism and Church of Englandism.'—p. 55.

"In the hands of Lancaster, with or without intention, the Bible, put into action by the instrument invented by Dr. Bell, worked as a batter ing-ram against the Established Church.-What was to be done? The Bible suited not the purposes of the Church of Rome: they forbade the use of it. As little did it or does it suit the purposes of the present rulers of the Church of England. What then was to be done?-Forbid the use of it they could not. What, in the same view, they could and did was-to teach, in the new way, the old thing which they found already in use-the Catechism :-the Catechism, which, having so long ago been taken in substance from the Church of Rome, was now seen to be so commodiously suited to those same purposes. The Bible was taught by Lancaster: the Church of England Catechism was not taught by him. Should the system of Lancaster spread, and become universal, -the Bible might prevail over the Catechism, and the Church of Eng land might thus be brought to an end.-Dr. Bell was taken up,-and, with the Catechism in his hand, employed to defend the Church against the Bible.

'The war thus secretly carried on against the Bible, common prudence forbade to become an open one. Appearances required that some use should appear to be made of it. Selected and cooked up in the manner which was judged a proper one, the Parables, the Miracles, the Discourses of Jesus,-sooner or later, (for, in the accounts published, times are throughout kept, as will be seen, in a state of the most convenient darkness)—sooner or later, some of each, at any rate, were professed at least to be taught.-Taught-but how? Taught by being caused to be repeated? Oh, no: that was a privilege, reserved (as in Part I. § 4, as hath been seen) for compositions of superior worth and use: for the Graces, the Collects, the Prayers, the Catechism,--the Catechism" entire and broken"—of the Church of England. Under the impossibility of suppressing it altogether, the shortness of one short dis course the Lord's Prayer, saved it from exclusion, so resolutely put upon every thing else that was ever said by him.'-pp. 55, 56.

Thus arose the National Society, intended by its patrons as a mode of attack on the Bible, and it appears that in this extraordi

1.

nary

nary warfare, the assailants had recourse to the most extraordinary means. From the first origin of this society Mr. Bentham, it seems, closely watched their nefarious' proceedings. From the first, several strange circumstances excited in his mind a suspicion 'that all was not right,' and that there was some concealed fraud at the bottom. Sometimes the dates of its meetings were not advertized, sometimes the place was omitted, the members present were not named, and, what is worst of all, the secretary most corruptly suppressed all but the initial letters of his Christian names; and signed himself T. T. Walmsley. This was strong evidence of guilt, and by a lengthened and minute examination of the various artifices, Mr. Bentham found that they who constitute this Society have all along been deceiving the public with a tissue of imposture, if not of absolute forgery;' that in order to magnify their importance, they have been in the habit of announcing fictitious meetings, held by 'imaginary persons,' committees without any "tokens of existence,' and resolutions that were never passed except in nubibus: it is, in fact, a society of invisibles.'

6

Our author, however, carries his scepticism a little too far. Notwithstanding his doubts of the existence of this excellent association, it is certainly not altogether invisible. Its good effects are both seen and felt, and are widely diffused and every where acknowledged. We can assure Mr. Bentham of these facts, and to satisfy some of his other scruples we will tell him, we have been credibly informed that Mr. Walmsley is a person in esse, and that (whatever may have been his reasons for concealing them) he actually has two Christian names.

This Society is, we are told, intended as 'a job for the bishops,' and the intolerant part of the bishops and their adherents, being but too probably the major part of them, contrive in this way to enjoy the benefit of their wickedness, without standing exposed to the disgrace so justly due to it.' This disgrace they will now no longer escape; their wicked design of teaching religion, that 'sanctified and so well elaborated production of the modern den of Cacus,' is detected; they must now blush, if they can, at the exposure of their self-conscious improbity,' and submit to the due humiliation' with which they are here threatened.

Having disposed of the subordinate and less important subjects of the Catechism and the National Society, our author enters at large on the consideration of the church, its various abominations' and antichristian practices.' We cannot follow him through all his lamentations over the many virtues that are sacrificed to the Moloch of the Church of England,' and the divisions and subdivisions of the twenty-five vices (for that is the exact number) which render

it adverse to the joint interests of piety, morality, and economy.' Many of the faults here attributed to it are such, as have often before been laid to its charge by its enemies; but Mr. Bentham must certainly be allowed the merit of having enlarged the catalogue. He is clearly original when he says that neglect of duty, wilful, constant, predetermined neglect of duty, and with it obtainment of money on false pretences, is sanctioned and established by the legislature.' We have often heard complaints of extravagantly paid benefices,' but our author is the first who has pointed out the very alarming consequences of those occasional dues which he emphatically terms the fornication-compelling, and birth and death embittering surplice-fees.' He has wandered a good way, even from his own former notions, in quest of accusations against our Rome-begotten and Rome-resembling church. He used to think that the many crimes committed in this country were owing to the ill construction of our laws, and at the time when he offered to convert rogues into honest men by contract, he flattered himself that with a system of laws framed according to his own views, and a panopticon of proper dimensions, the national morals might have been regenerated. But even attachment to his own speculations has yielded to enmity to the establishment, and we now learn that it is to the crime-producing virtue' of Church-of-Englandism that we are indebted for every moral disorder. Where would penal colonies, hulks or jails, find inhabitants, but for the Church of England? Thus the good that is done by the prisons is undone by the churches, and unless the latter be abolished the former will always overflow. Even the errors and superstitions of a rival creed the clergy are to answer for. What interest they can have in the support of popery is not very obvious; but according to Mr. Bentham they degrade the understandings of the lower Irish to render them incapable of perceiving the abuses of the protestant establishment, and on this subtle calculation of remote advantage they perversely assist in keeping up the authority of his holiness. Yes; it is for Church-of-Englandism, as well as by Church-of-Englandism, that Catholicism and Popery are kept on foot in Ireland."

Under the system here delineated, the unfortunate laity are, it seems,excellently well fleeced and squeezed, and no less excellently gulled and duped.' He rather grieves at the patience with which they submit to such exactions. But so long as people will continue to lie with their heads in a bush, to be thus vexed and pillaged, where is the imposture, where even the violence that will be grudged??

The spectacle of his unhappy countrymen, suffering under this load of misery does not oppress the spirits of Mr. Bentham; on

the

the contrary he seems rather to enjoy it, and cries out in sportive triumph

There stands Excellent Church. Behold her in puris naturalibus. These are among her vices. More, at any time, if wanted. Enquire, as above, of the Diocesan Secretary. Who shall make up the per contrà

side of her account? Who shall make out the list of her Excellencies?— Come forward, Dean Kipling;-Come forward, Dean Andrews;-Come forward, Bishop Burgess;-Come forward, Bishop Marsh;-Come forward, Bishop Howley;-Come forward, Archbishop Sutton;-" De fenders of the Faith and so forth.”-Come forward, Legion,-Saints of all sorts and sizes, buttoned up into unity in the waistcoat of the Quarterly Review.'-pp. 377.

Such is the classic wit with which our author can enliven a dreary prospect! and this is not the only instance in which he has deigned to make merry with his opponents, and to employ the weapons of gay irony and delicate sarcasm. To ourselves he has been throughout particularly attentive, and besides the honourable mention made of us in the above passage, he proposes to dignify us (perhaps rather prematurely) with the honour of canonization, and jocularly designates us by the title of St. Quarterly Review. It is gratifying to observe that profound philosophical reflection is not incompatible with sprightly elegance, and that our author's applica tion to severer studies has not dimmed the brilliancy of his fancy.

After having given so melancholy a view of the present system, we hasten to reverse the picture, and to show how complete is the alteration proposed by the author. He does not approve of halfmeasures, and accordingly the catalogue of what is to be abolished is tolerably extensive. It includes, besides all recorded declara→ tions of belief concerning doctrine,' all dignities and all offices in the church, (except that of parish clerk,) and all without exception in the universities. College fellowships are to be given to half-pay officers, and the colleges themselves to be converted into invalid barracks. The performance of divine service, which for some reason or other is still to be continued, is to be committed to the clerk, or to a parish boy, to be taught reading for the purpose, and to receive a small stipend out of the poors-rates. The advantages which this plan offers in point of economy are obvious, and the im provement in discipline will probably be equal; for if the young preacher should be guilty of any irregularity, his congregation are to correct his negligence, or boyish malice,' by proper rebuke, or if necessary a proportionate application of the rod.

These are Mr. Bentham's views of the dignity of the clerical profession, and the remarks which he has incidentally let fall on that of the law, indicate it to be no better, and to stand in need of

some