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a puppet would the King of England be! what a slave, amidst the surrounding liber. ty of his free-born subjects! a slave in the tenderest and most momentous of all concerns! Literally, his very soul would not be his own, but would be held at the arbitrary will of the minister of the day.

"But suppose the question were, what Mr Jeffrey states it to be, a question of State policy, is he so ignorant of the British Constitution as to assert, or does he think the rest of the world so ignorant of it as to believe, that it is unfair or unconstitutional for the King of England to consult the chief justice of England, and to demand from him a written opinion (thus making him formally responsible for his opinion) on a question of Ŝtate intimately connected with constitutional law, that chief justice being a peer of the realm, (and, as such, called by his very patent to advise his Majesty in the arduous concerns of the realm,) and one of his sworn privycouncillors? Yes,' says Mr Jeffrey, 'unless the same chief justice, peer, and privy. councillor, be also a cabinet minister. I will not condescend to answer such an assertion, but will send him who makes it, if he is honest in making it, to learn better what the Constitution of England is, before he presumes thus to read lectures on it to his sovereign. Meanwhile, it can hardly be necessary to remind him, that somewhat more than twenty years ago, it was a matter of grave discussion in both Houses of Parliament, whether it was consistent with the spirit of the Constitution, however it might be justified by the letter, for the chief justice to be a member of the Cabinet at all. In the course of that discussion, which was handled (among others) by men to whom it would not be derogatory to Mr Jeffrey, and his whole fraternity of Reviewers, to look up with some deference and respect,-in the course of that discussion, I repeat, never once was anything so preposterous asserted, or even imagined, as this newly-discovered maxim, (which, however, if true, would have been conclusive of the whole question,) that a chief justice may not be consulted by his sovereign at all, unless he be first made a cabinet-minister. What was the language of Mr Fox on that occasion? I have always held, and still hold, that a Cabinet Council is unknown to our law ;'*—and, in order that Mr Jeffrey may not ride off on the distinction suggested by the word Law, I will add another dictum of the same statesman:- In point of fact, there is nothing in our CONSTITUTION which recognises any such institution as a Cabinet Council.' But Mr Fox's language went still further, and was still more conclusive in settling the present point. Where no personal

• Hansard's Debates, vol. vi. p. 09. VOL. XXIV.

objections are, or can be, stated, one must hear it recommended with astonishment, that a class of officers, who are admitted to be perfectly eligible to the Privy Council, should not be allowed to discharge the du ties of a Privy Councillor, should, in fact, be excluded from the performance of duties, which, on their admission to the Privy Council, they are sworn to perform.

"In truth, if any Cabinet should dare to exercise the right, which Mr Jeffrey claims for them, that of excluding from the royal closet any peer of the realm who has demanded an audience of his sovereign, much more who has been required by the sovereign to advise him, they would incur the guilt for which (inter alia) the two Spencers, in Edward II.'s time, were impeached and banished the kingdom, viz.:

That they, by their evil covin, would not suffer the great men of the realm, the king's good counsellors, to speak with the king, or to come near him; but only in the presence of the said Hugh the father, and Hugh the son, or one of them, and at their will, and according to such things as pleased them.'†

"So much for this very shallow person's knowledge of the Constitution: so much for his qualifications to set up as Schoolmaster with his Frimer' for the instruction of kings.”

"Dead for a ducat!"

The Reviewer had said that Dr Phillpotts (alluding to the King's cor respondence with Mr Pitt, edited by him) had selected a period, when the late King's reason was clouded, "for trying his intellects in conflict with those of Mr Pitt." Here, too, the Reviewer is utterly and justly demolish

ed.

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"Mr Jeffrey, here, too, knows that there is not the smallest shadow of reason for the assertion he has found it convenient to make; he knows, that there was, in this case, no trying of intellects in conflict' one with another; for he knows, that the parties were speaking to two very different points; that Mr Pitt addressed to his Majesty a statement (a most able and most exquisitely written statement) of his views of the expediency of conceding to the Roman Catholics a full and equal share of all the powers of the state, (under certain most important conditions, of which I shall have more to say hereafter,) while his Majesty, in answer, expressly waves all discussion of Mr Pitt's question, and tells him at once, that he is precluded from entering into it by higher considerations than the highest reasons of State expediency which can be devised."

† Blackstone, p. 292,

с

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 pre.sented 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

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weightiest dictum,' as Mr Jeffrey calls it, of his royal Father, I hate all metaphysics, above all, Scotch metaphysics."

"But Mr Jeffrey is not without an argument in support of his distinction (when was there a metaphysician without an argument 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.'

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"Now,' says Mr Jeffrey, it is quite plain that this can affect the King only in does the same ("I will, to my power, his executive capacity-the second promise 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 distinguished 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 Established 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.

"Taking these last words into the account, and viewing the whole passage with due consideration of the nature of the ob ligation, and the time, purpose, and de sign, 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 legis. lature 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 ?"

By the by, Edinburgh has absolutely 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, well meaning 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 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 faculty 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

ral propriety of surrendering up his own judgment, and deferring to the collective wisdom of that body of men in whose counsels 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 of his people-the Revered, and the straw. George the Third-the father 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 collec tive 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, "Sire, you are right in your interpretation 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 oath"-Must the King then obey wrong in your interpretation of the 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

there many
"Collective Wisdoms?"
It is great difficulty for the King which
of them he shall choose. Thus, this
Irish Surgeon is one "Collective Wis-
dom," and Dr Phillpotts is another,
and between the two, suppose them to
be both Cabinet Ministers, how would
it be possible for any King on the face
of this earth to choose? Were we King,
we should, for the sake of a quiet life,
take the advice of the Surgeon prac
tising as a physician, and to soothe
Dr Phillpotts' feelings, make him a Bi-
shop. Yet, instead of a Surgeon, Pad-
dy, who, on his title page, facetiously
calls himself" By a Clergyman of the
Church of England," should by rights
have been a "Praste,"-and then, (that
excellent song, "The Irish Wedding,"
is our authority,) he would have got
not only

liam, have tolerated Protestants ad-
vancing such claims as the Papists now
advance, or that any Roman Catholic
priest that ever sold such indulgences,
would have advised him to do so, in
stead of whispering into his ear a hint
about "the moral propriety" of an-
other St Bartholomew?

"Praties dressed both ways, Both roasted and boiled," but of him also it would have been sung

"The Praste got the snipe."

This self-ordained clergyman of the Church of England, is, we know it, an Irish Surgeon, and what is still more inconsistent, apparently, with his assumed character-he is also a Papist, and as good a Papist too as ever kissed Pope's toe, or gave up his conscience to a priest.

He then blarneys away, but not at all after the lively fashion of his imaginative countrymen, about the different varieties of oaths. Now there certainly is in Ireland a more amusing variety of oaths than in any other country we ever had the pleasure of travelling through in a jingle; but there is not in all the Green Isle, one single Coronation Oath. Had old Brian Borrou taken a Coronation oath, or "Malachi with the Collar of Gold," do you think those grim Milesians would have seen the moral propriety of surrendering their judgments to the Collective Wisdom of Connaught or Tipperary? Do make some allow ance for a man's being a King. It is a serious, a solemn business, being a King. A Coronation Oath is no joke. Come now, sir, you Surgeon, and you son of a Surgeon! do you think that any Roman Catholic King that ever bought indulgences for wholesale adulteries, and murders, would, in the face of such a Coronation Oath as was first administered to King Wil

The

Paddy then becomes illustrative, and compares the King with his Coronation Oath, to a trustee sworn faithfully to administer to a will. honest trustee is no lawyer; and the clauses in the will are so confused, and complicated, and contradictory, that they are enough to puzzle the devil, the greatest lawyer and conveyancer of any age or country. Instead, however, of consulting that Lord Chancellor, which under the rose many a trus tee does, especially in orphan cases, the Surgeon informs us, that the trustee consults the family lawyer, and his advice he implicitly follows, as the administrator of the trust.

Now, in the first place, does not the Surgeon know, that the King did this very thing that he consulted Lord Kenyon? But, in the second place, cannot the Surgeon see, that there is no more resemblance between the two cases than between a horse-chesnut and a chesnut horse? The King was as good a judge in his case-and a far better too, than anybody could be for him, for he had a profound and holy feeling, without which the spirit of an oath cannot be understood. Farther, what would the trustee have done had six lawyers on each side given a different interpretation of the said will? Cast lots? Suppose he had trusted to a knave or knaves, and robbed the widow and the fatherless? Or suppose that after all, one honest man more enlightened than all the rest, showed him, clear as heaven, that the will, instead of being confused and complicated, was as plain as a pikestaff? Farther, suppose, and it is the case in question, that the trustee partly admitted from the beginning, that he knew nothing at all about the matter; had no opinion, no judgment, no feeling, no fear, no uneasiness, no tremblings of a tender conscience, but handed the will over to the lawyer without reading what he knew it was impossible for him to understand ? Does this apply to the King and his Coronation Oath ?-No.

But to humour the Surgeon in his

fancy for the law, and indeed it is not easy to know whether he be a surgeon, a clergyman of the Church of England, a Roman Catholic priest, or an attorney-we shall put a case to him, which will instantly settle his hash-the case of an English Protestant, a trustee, administering to a will, in which it is provided that the daughter of the testator, also an English Protestant, shall not marry an Irishman-particularly ODoherty. The young lady will no doubt think that very hard-for "there is none that makes love like a real Irishman," and the trustee may think the testator a very absurd defunct. But the testator has given his reason why his daughter shall be disinherited, if she marries ODoherty, namely, that he knows she never could be happy with the Adjutant. The trustee makes in quiry about the Ensign's character, and finds, that with the exception of a few debts, the amount of which it is difficult to come at, and a foolish rumour of his having another wife, the Standard Bearer is a most entirely unexceptionable match, and is the like liest man in all the world to make Miss MacGillicuddy happy; on which the trustee fulfils the testator's intentions, which could only be to make his daughter the happiest of women, though he knew not how to set about it, and had stood in the shape of a ghost in her way and his own light-by himself giving away the bride to the Hero of Talavera and Picardy. All the ODoherties-many of them as 'cute lawyers as ever drew or expounded a will, were clear for the marriage. The uncle had his doubts, but has ving consulted his conscience as to the moral propriety of surrendering his judgment, and of deferring to the Collective Wisdom of that body of men on whose counsels he had ordinarily confided, why then, to use the Surgeon's phraseology, for he is also a bit of a metaphysician," it is only the mind or intellectual faculty that is employed for the purpose" of ascertaining whether the ODoherty was qualified to make the MacGillicuddy happy or not; and having little or no mind of his own, and a bachelor wholly ignorant about such matters, the marriage is solemnized and consummated of course, and in due season the lady will leave the Lakes of

Killarney for Dublin, to lie in under Dr Crampton.

The grave absurdity of the Surgeon's illustration will, we hope, excuse the gay absurdity of ours. Each of us writes in his own peculiar vein

and though both may be bad in itself, the contrast may be amusing. But the latter half of his answer is a sermon, on an excellent subject too, Christian Charity. A sermon on a working week-day is, we cannot help saying what we think, a very great bore indeed; and as this happens to be a working week-day-we never write articles on Sunday-we shall put off the perusal of it till the first rainy Sabbath on which we happen to have a cold and sore throat, in addition to our gout and rheumatism, and when it would therefore be more rash than pious to go to church. From a slight and hurried glance, we see the preacher remonstrates very seriously and solemnly with Dr Phillpotts on his extreme warmth and zeal in the cause of Protestantism and the Protestant Church. He conjures him to reflect how improper it is to be so severe on "six millions of his fellow Christians"-pretty Christians truly a few millions of them say we

not to trample on the fallen-not to recommend keeping all these millions down by the strong arm of the law, and so forth, recommending mildness, meekness, pity, pardon, allowance for human frailty, and for difference of opinion in affairs between a man's conscience and his God-including, of course, his priest-and throwing in a hint now and then, that as there have been such things as rebellions in Ireland, there may be again-" for that nuncios, bishops, and priests, are not the only powers that have led on the people of any country to acts of violence in defiance of laws, human and divine. I can myself testify that such acts were committed in Ireland by the Protestant army of a Protestant king, at the command of generals, colonels, and captains, all professing the Protestant Faith." So out jumps the truth, our friend the surgeon is-a Croppy.

Yet it appears that our Irish preacher, on beginning to indite his answer, did not intend to preach, but merely to pamphletize. He begins

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