the cause in a manner which would have done credit to the

dark ages.

The Rev. Robert Richmond assured his hearers, and now assures his readers, that when Christ said, This is my body,' he really and truly meant that the bread which he held in his hands in the presence of his disciples, was really and truly his own flesh and blood, his proper and substantial body. So, when Jesus said, I am the vine,' it is, according to Mr Richmond's method of interpreting scripture, to be clearly and indefinitely understood that Christ was a vine plant, from which branches proceeded, and which was bearing leaves and grapes: that when he said, I am the door,' he was literally and truly a door used for passage from place to place. When Jeremiah says, Thy words were found of me and I did eat them,' it is, however difficult it may be, to be understood that he employed his teeth upon words, precisely as he would upon bread or any kind of vegetable or animal food! Very probably these absurdities had all been established dogmas in the Church of Rome, as is transubstantiation, could they have been ma ie as subservient to the ends of lustful ambition and temporal dominion. We pity Mr. Richmond and the deluded disciples of those who boast that they are apostles, but are not. Religion can never be a reasonable service, where it is not a worship offered by an enlightened faith.

The contributors to the erection of St. Peter's Chapel at Cobridge, cannot complain of misapplying their money and labours, if it be true, as Mr Richmond asserts it is, that God will, for their assisting in the completion of a work which tends 'so much to his honour, and to the salvation of souls,' bestow upon them an immense reward, and an additional increase of heavenly glory!' This, all this, it seems, in addition to an 'hundred-fold' in this life, is promised by the Father of Mercies, to the benefactors of St. Peter's Chapel, Cobridge, for their contributions upon the present occasion. We know nothing of such promises: perhaps this may be one of the points which is proved principally by its being a doctrine of the Romish Catholic Church, which can accommodate its doctrines and discipline to every purpose.

Art. X. Anecdotes of the Life of Richard Watson, Bishop of Landaff, (Concluded from page 236).

THE

HE Regency Question, which excited in the year 1798 so extraordinary a commotion in political parties, and gave rise to so splendid a conflict of talent between their respective leaders, was an occasion which imperatively summoned the VOL. IX. N. S.

2 G

Bishop to his parliamentary duties, and afforded him a fit opportunity for the manly assertion of his constitutional principles. Mr. Fox had maintained, in the debate which arose on the motion to appoint a committee to search the Journals for precedents, that when the sovereign from any causes becomes incapable of 'exercising his functions, the heir apparent has an indisputable 'claim to the exercise of the executive power, although the two 'Houses of Parliament were alone competent to pronounce when 'he ought to take possession of the right.' Mr. Pitt, in reply, declared this doctrine to be little less than treason to the constitution, and said that the Prince of Wales had no more right to 'assume the regency than any other man in the kingdom had.' These opposite sentiments were supported by the partisans of each side with great heat and animosity. When the business was so far advanced that a Bill was brought in for appointing the Prince of Wales Regent, with certain limitations in the 'exercise of his powers,' the Bishop came up to London for the purpose of delivering the Speech which he has carefully preserved, avowing himself to be desirous, from his confidence that the principles maintained in it are perfectly constitutional, to give it this chance of going down to posterity.' It is of considerable length, extending to twenty pages, and bears all the marks of his clear and vigorous manner of thinking.

I begin, my Lords, with advancing a proposition which will be denied by none; the proposition is this, that the monarchical power of a King of Great Britain is not an arbitrary, but a fiduciary power; a trust committed by the community at large to one individual, to be exercised by him in obedience to the law of the land, and in certain cases according to his own discretion, but in subserviency to the public good. This proposition is one of the most fundamental principles of our constitution, and of every free constitution in the world. Its truth cannot be questioned, and, its truth being admitted, it seems to follow as a legitimate consequence, That whenever the individual to whom the community has committed the trust, shall become incapable of executing it, the trust itself ought to revert to the community at large, to be by them delegated, pro tempore, to some other person, for the same common end, the promotion of the common welfare. It might otherwise happen that one man's misfortune might become the occasion of all men's ruin. But if, during the present incapacity of the King, the trust which has been given to him, not for his benefit, but for the benefit of those who gave it to him, does in fact revert to the community, then may the community delegate, till the King's recovery, the whole or any part of that trust to whomsoever they think fit.

Upon this or some such general ground of reasoning, I presume the proposition has been founded which maintains, that the Prince of Wales has no more right to the Regency, previous to the designation of the two Houses of Parliament, (which may be supposed to represent the community at large,) than any other person.

Le

My Lords, I conceive this reasoning is not true; it would have been true had the law been absolutely silent as to what was to become of the trust, where he to whom it had been given became incapable of executing it: but the law is not silent on this point. In one case in which the King becomes incapable of executing the trust, committed to him, the law has clearly and positively said, No, the trust shall not revert to the community at large; the community perfectly understand the mischief which would attend such a reversion; they will have nothing to do with it; it shall go according to an established order of succession, and it shall go entire to the heir. This is the express declaration of law, when the King becomes, by death, incapable of exercising the trust committed to him; and the analogy of law speaks precisely the same language in the present case; it says, No, the trust shall not revert to the community, it shall go pro tempore, and it shall go entire, to the next in succession to the Crown; it shall go to the Prince of Wales, who is of an age to receive, and of a capacity to execute the trust for the public good.

I say not, my Lords, that the Prince of Wales has a legal right to the trust; but I do most firmly contend that he has such a title to it, as cannot be set aside without violating the strongest and most irrefragable analogy of law; and in what such analogy differs from law itself, I submit to your Lordships' mature consideration.'

After combating the policy of the proposed restrictions, which occupies the principal part, and is indeed the main object of the speech, his lordship adverts to a distinction which had of late years arisen, and which he regarded as pregnant with mischief,a distinction into King's friends, and Prince's friends.'

I have no ambition to be ranked among the King's friends, none to be ranked among the Prince of Wales's friends: but I have an ambition, I have had it through life, and I shall carry it to my grave with me, it is an ambition to be ranked among the friends of the whole House of Brunswick: and why, my Lords? not from any private regard, but because the House of Brunswick is a friend to the civil and religious liberties of mankind; because, if we may augur concerning the future from an experience of the past, the House of Brunswick will ever continue to be friends to the constitution of the country, as defined and established at the Revolution.'

His Lordship's view of the limitation, was, that it amounted to a virtual suspension of a portion of the royal prerogative. The established prerogative of the Crown, he declared to be a part of the common law of the land; and be thought that the two Houses of Parliament have no more right to suspend the law, than the King bas. The constitution is violated, let the sus'pension be made by any power short of that which made the law.' He argued, that if the two Houses might suspend indefinitely, they might abolish perpetually, and abolish, if any, all the prerogatives of the Crown, nay, the King himself. Speaking of himself, the Bishop asserted, that he was no friend to re

publican principles, none to prerogative principles, none to aristocratic principles, but a warm, zealous, and determined friend to that equilibrium of the three powers, on the preservation of which depends the conservation of the finest constitution

' in the world.'

He adverts, in conclusion, to the question of the arrangement of the household, the inuence attached to which ought not, perhaps, he remarked, to be permitted to exist at all; but while It does in fact exist, ought not to be dissevered from the executive government.

It is a great doubt with me, whether the influence of the Crown be not too great but I have no doubt in saying, that the influence ought not to subsist any where but in the Crown. But I will not dwell upon this, for I agree with the noble lord who opened the debate, that we ought not to refer to the characters of the great personages to whom we have occasion to allude; if this were allowable I would say, that I think so well of the Queen, as to be under no manner of apprehension that she will ever put herself at the head of a party in opposition to the government of her son.'

Of the part which her Majesty is represented as having taken, subsequent to the King's recovery, the Bishop speaks with a freedom which he would not perhaps have thought it altogether decorous to use in a work to be published at the time, but which, so far as relates to the plain statement of the fact, it would be ridiculous to object to in a narrative like the present, intended to meet the public eye at so remote a period. Facts such as the Bishop adverts to, rank among the most important illustrations of the domestic history of a nation, and it is for want of an honest chronicler like old Landaff, that many an instructive lesson which experience might furnish, has been lost to posterity. It has been very industriously insinuated, that the Bishop's manuscript contained many exceptionable details relative to certain high and illustrious personages, which it was thought prudent to suppress. We believe this to be idle scandal; we judge so from the character of the writer, as well as from the nature of the passages which the work contains: these the Editor, had he been actuated by any mean fears of offending, would not have risked; at the same time they seem to carry the appearance of containing the full expression of the Bishop's sentiments, and leave no room for suspicion that he was actuated by feelings which could seek gratification by perpetuating slander. The charge brought against him of a disposition to speak against kings and queens, is a gratuitous calumny. Of the only king of whom he has occasion to speak, he speaks loyally, though sometimes with a bluff honesty characteristic of the man; and he inserts several anecdotes illustrative of his Majesty's quickness of apprehension and sound understanding, which it was at one time, as he re

marks, the fashion to decry.' Of her Majesty, the volume con❤ tains nothing more uncourtly than the following remarks:

The restoration of the King's health soon followed. It was the artifice of the minister to represent all those who had opposed his measures, as enemies to the King; and the Queen lost, in the opi nion of many, the character which she had hitherto maintained in the country by falling in with the designs of the minister. She impru dently distinguished by different degrees of courtesy on the one hand, and by meditated affronts on the other, those who had voted against the minister, insomuch that the Duke of Northumberland one day said to me, "So, my Lord, you and I also are become traitors."

She received me at the drawing-room, which was held on the King's recovery, with a degree of coldness, which would have appeared to herself ridiculous and ill placed, could she have imagined how little a mind such as mine regarded, in its honourable proceedings, the displeasure of a woman, though that woman happened to be a Queen. The Prince of Wales, who was standing near her, then asked me to dine with him, and on my mak ing some objection to dining at Carlton House, he turned to Sir Thomas Dundas, and desired him to give us a dinner, at his house, on the following Saturday. Before we sat down to dinner on that day, the Prince took me aside, explained to me the principle on which he had acted during the whole of the King's illness, and spoke to me, with an afflicted feeling, of the manner in which the Queen had treated himself. I must do him the justice to say, that he spoke, in this conference, in as sensible a manner as could possibly have been expected from an heir apparent to the throne, and from a son of the best principles towards both his parents. I advised him to per severe in dutifully bearing with his mother's ill humour till time and her own good sense should disentangle her from the web which mi nisterial cunning had thrown around her.

"Having thought well of the Queen, I was willing to attribute her conduct, during the agitation of the Regency question, to her apprehensions of the King's safety, to the misrepresentations of the King's minister, to any thing rather than to a fondness for power.

Before we rose from table at Sir Thomas Dundas's, where the Duke of York and a large company were assembled, the conversation turning on parties, I happened to say that I was sick of parties, and should retire from all public concerns. "No," said the Prince," and mind who it is that tells you so, you shall never retire: a man of your talents shall never be lost to the public." I have now lived many years in retirement, and, in my seventy-fifth year, I feel no wish to live otherwise.'

The time is not yet come for writing what may deserve to be called a History of the reign of George the Third. Annals and Anecdotes may be given to the public under this title; the records of the Parliamentary discussions form in themselves a highly important and interesting document; but an event must be wholly passed by before it can fairly become the subject of his tory, which is not the case with the present reign, nor with the