means secresy, the ulterior means imposture?—a Society set on foot by a knot of persons, who were and are ashamed or afraid to own themselves? a Society, of which, from first to last, the business has been done, by persons who from the first to the last, have been and still are, ashamed or afraid to make known the parts they respectively had in it?—this, in England, a National Society?—and not only a National Society but the only one?-Yes:self-assumed names, long and short-members— operations in this Society, such as it has been already seen to be, every thing is of a piece.

The Bishops' Society-the Members of it, all of them, either themselves Bishops, or nominees of Bishops The Bishops' Society-a job for the Bishops, set on foot by the Bishops-carried on by and for Bishops-such, it has been seen, is its nature -such and such alone is the name, by which it should be called.

§ XI. How to organize a Chaos-Forms of Disorder exemplified in these Reports.

Thus much concerning the supposed system of imposition, considered in that same character,-as also concerning its author or authors. But even supposing all sinister design out of the question,-every thing that is amiss having imbecility for its sole cause, even on this supposition the few additional

pages that may be necessary to the placing of this imbecility in its true light, will scarcely be thought to lie open to the charge of being wasted on an unworthy subject. Yes if the Reverend T. T. Walmsley, Sec., so often mentioned, were the only person to whom the symptoms of incapacity about to be displayed were imputable. But, among the persons whose fitness for these respective offices is at stake, in the character either of penners or approvers,-are those who, taken together, form no small portion, of those members of the great community, on whose fitness for the functions respectively exercised by them, the lot of all the others, not to speak of those persons themselves,- is in so great a degree dependent.

1. First, as to the Archbishop of Canterbury. Whether, for the general scheme of execution, as well as for the original design,-it be not to his Grace, in conjunction with the two successive Lords of London, that the acknowledgements of the public are, in the first place, if not exclusively due is a point, which, with such grounds for dee cision as presented themselves, has already been submitted to the judgment of the sincere reader. But the point now in question is the penmanship: and it will now be to be seen-whether, of whatsoever glory may be derivable from this source, either the entire mass, or at least by far the prin cipal portion, belongs not by an indisputable title to his said Grace.

In relation to the body, in which, in and by these Reports, his Grace is throughout represented as acting in the character of President,-the doubts which have presented themselves, as attaching to its title to its assumed appellative of a Committee, will presently be brought to view. But, be this as it may, Committee is the name there given, to a body to such a degree Parliamentary, that the whole body of Lords Spiritual formed but a part of it. Now then, as in the House of Commons, so in the House of Lords, as often as a paper, under the name of a Report, is penned, a Committee being the authority, in the name of which it appears, the hand of the Chairman of that same Committee is the hand, by which, at any rate it is always supposed to be penned,-and, unless by accident, always is penned.

In the penning of these papers, suppose even any subordinate hand-suppose, as next in course, the hand of T.T. Walmsley, Sec. to have been ever so busy suppose accordingly that in the main they belong not to his Grace on the score of gene ration,—at any rate they cannot but have belonged to his said Grace on the score of adoption: which circumstance, even without any direct evidence,→→ if not for all purposes of admiration, at any rate for all purposes of commiseration,-suffices to render it as much his Grace's work as if it had been by his Grace's most Reverend hand that the charac ters had been penned, or by his Grace's most

Reverend lips, that the sounds of which they are expressive had been dictated.

Not, however, to any such ground of inference, is his said Grace's claim to the title of adoptive parent of this intellectual progeny confined. In Report II. p. 18., at his Grace's motion, &c. &c. a Resolution passed, ordering that "of the pro"ceedings of this Society a correct statement for "the" [then] "last year be published forthwith :" -and, in Report III. p. 28., in the discharge of the duties of his "peculiarly laborious office," among which are particularized the having" to at"tend upon all its (the Society's) Committees, "and to record all its proceedings:" his "merits” are stated as being such on which "it may be "thought unnecessary to enlarge."

Of the work in question, be it what it may, the paternity, by a title thus indisputable, belongs then to his said Grace.

What the work consists of is—a Report,―i. e. a statement-summary statement-of the proceedings of a public body,-followed, as usual, by an Appendix, composed of a number of separate papers, or written discourses,-which, instead of being interwoven in the narrative, are, for shortness, discarded out of it, and in each instance are, or at least ought to be, referred to in it. On the present occasion, the body of the Report is out of the question: all that belongs to the occasion is the Appendix.

Even in the Appendix, all that belongs to the present purpose is comprehended under two heads, viz. 1. giving,-in or in connexion with the body of the Report,-in relation to each article in the Appendix, that brief indication of the distinguishing nature of its contents, which is commonly denominated a title and 2. the attaching to it, in some way or other, according to the nature of it, those tokens of authenticity, which lead to the proof that it is what it assumes to be: and in particular that it is the discourse of the person or persons whose discourse it assumes to be :-and, in so far as, with relation to the contents of the individual article in question, independently of the question of authenticity, the circumstance of time is on any other account material, at what point of time the paper received its existence, or its currency, as the case may be.

On this occasion, the difficulty that belongs to the occasion consists-not so much in the keeping to the track of propriety,-but in the conceiving how, in relation to either of the two just mentioned points, it could have happened to a man to depart from it. This track is no other than what every man, one should have thought, would have fallen into, and continued in of course. Among so many Reports, as, in every session, are given in by so many Committees of the House of Commons-not to speak of the House of great dignity and small use -among all these instruments, not so much

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