*

also, in his admirable sermons on the Sabbath, denounced this scandalous practice as loudly calling for redress. The original temptation to this flagrant breach of the laws-the convenience of travelling when the roads were most empty, subsists no longer, the roads being now crowded on the Sunday as on other days; but,' adds his Lordship, the reverence for the day among all orders is extinguished, and the abuse goes on from the mere habit of profaneness.'

Some respectable individuals have questioned the propriety of calling in the civil power to enforce, as they represent it, in this respect, the religion of Jesus. Our view of the matter is different. Overt acts of irreligion, (and how frequently soever that term may have been misapplied, there is such a thing as irreligion,) appear to us to fall under the cognizance of the legis. lature on account of their bearings upon the social interests of the community. Admitting, therefore, what can hardly be a matter of doubt, that the open violation of the Lord's day tends to the demoralizing of the lower orders, and taking into consideration the constant, we may almost say insurmountable, temptation to their disregard of its religious observances, which is presented by the unrestrained licentiousness of the higher orders in this respect, the public weal seems to demand that the laws should interpose, not for the chimerical purpose of making men religious, but in order to prevent their disturbing others in the practice of religion, and subverting what may be considered as a part of the established order of society. The Sabbath, independently of all religious obligation, is the law of the land; it is a rightful law, for it trenches upon no man's natural rights; politically considered, it is a salutary law, as we think Necker has satisfactorily argued in his Treatise on the subject. Public opinion is, no doubt, the most unexceptionable and the most efficient means of carrying the object of the law into effect, and it would be well, if that should be found to supersede the necessity of all legislative restrictions; but we cannot but cordially approve of Bishop Watson's suggestion. The greatest obstacle to a reformation of the national habits in this respect, is presented by the practice of those who seem to stand too high for private admonition or public opinion to have its due operation upon their minds.

The Bishop's sentiments on the subject of the Catholic Question are repeatedly stated with his usual force of argumentation and expression. In a letter to the Duke of Rutland in 1784, he writes: 'No man upon earth, I trust, can have more enlarged sentiments of toleration than I have, but the Church of Rome is a persecuting church, and it is our interest and our

* Horsley's Sermons. Vol. II. p. 234.

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duty, on every principle of religion and common sense, to guard ourselves against her machinations.' He expresses to the same nobleman his opinion, that that Protestant govern'ment is unwise, which trusts power to the Catholics, till it 'shall be clearly proved that if they had the opportunity they would not use it to the oppression of the Protestants.'

I am afraid of Popery,' he writes to Mr. Pitt in 1791, because, where it has the power, it assumes the right of persecution, and whilst it believes that in afflicting the body, it saves the soul of a convert, I do not see how it can abandon the idea of the utility of persecution.'

Nevertheless, when the petition of the Roman Catholics in Ireland, was in 1805 taken into consideration, the Bishop, cordially approving of the principle and purport of the petition, signified to Mr. Pitt his conviction of the justice and expediency of granting it, but for his Majesty's conscientious scruples respecting the measure, which he thought ought to be regarded as a sufficient reason for deferring it.

When I say, that I respect the conscience of the King, I do not mean to say that it is rightly formed; but I applaud his integrity in adhering to it whilst he believes it to be so. I think that it is not rightly formed, because I see no danger occurring to the Church of England from Catholi Emancipation, either in Great Britain or Ire land.'

We can afford no room for any comment on these extracts, but they serve to shew that a friend to what is termed Catholic Emancipation, on the ground of expediency, is not, on that account, justly to be suspected of an indifference to the distinctive character and evils of Popery.

In transcribing the manly expressions of enlightened and patriotic sentiment which abound in this volume, and which place in so favourable a light the intellectual character of the Bishop of Landaff, deep regret has been constantly blended with the feeling of satisfaction, when we have reflected how every such sentiment would have acquired the power of making a tenfold impression, had it been enforced by a life reflecting the glories of true greatness and genuine piety. Bishop Watson is not to be named with the father of modern science, whom Pope styled

'The wisest, greatest, meanest, of mankind ;' but his character suggests the necessity of a similar qualification of our praise. He wanted just that one ingredient of genuine greatness which should have delivered him from the love of this world. To him might our Saviour's address to the amiable young ruler have been with propriety applied: "One "thing thou lackest." Ambition was, at first, it is evident, his ruling passion, and it was as honourable an ambition as usually prompts the candidates for "earthly things." When repeated VOL. IX. N. S. 21

disappointments had shewn bim the futility of all expectation of further advancement, he took refuge in the pride of retirement; but retirenent was, to a mind like his, an element of peculiar danger. He forsook the world in the disgust produced by defeat, not with the lofty spirit of a conqueror. At every movement on the episcopal bench, the rustling of lawn sleeves seemed to break upon his solitude, with the effect of a distant bugle upon an old hunter, who, though condemned to ignoble rest, has not lost his relish for the chase. By the banks of romantic Windermere, still bis dreams were of Lambeth; he could neither forget nor bear to be forgotten.

In this state of seclusion, it was inevitable that the action of his mind should assume a morbid direction. Avarice, which has been termed the passion of age, is but a different modification of the selfism (to use his own phrase,) which at another period developed itself in the form of ambition. The life-long complaints of the retired bishop of the poorest diocese, terminated in his leaving behind him, it is said, not much less than a hundred thousand pounds. It is true that this accumulation of property was the fruit of his own honourable exertions; but there was, to say the least, an incongruity in a Regius Professor's driving the trade of an agriculturist, and in his disregarding those Episcopal duties which he had so solemnly pledged himself to dis charge, that could not fail to strike even the peasantry of Westmoreland, and all with whom the money-getting Bishop came into contact.

Who would not laugh, if such a man there be,
Who would not weep, if Atticus were he.'

Why did he not resign his station in the Establishment, and become respectable by avowing his preference for a secular life? Or why did not the powers of the world to come, seize in that solitude, upon his unoccupied faculties, and render it impossible for him, thenceforth, to stoop to the drudgery of the world, producing a happy blindness to the things which are seen, from the overpowering glory of the visions of eternity? One thing he lacked. That one thing would have made the vacillating theologian a firm believer, the despairing partizan a persevering patriot, the retired bishop' a holy and a happy recluse. For want of this one requisite, he subscribed to what he did not believe, undertook duties he never discharged, (as if in religious concerns alone, that bold integrity, which never yielded to the fear or favour of man, might be safely prevaricated away,) retained the care of a diocese in which he never resided, and which he seldom visited, and has bequeathed us only the opinions of a sage, not, alas! the example of a saint ;

-a name

Beyond the limits of a vulgar fate,

Beneath the Good how far-but far above the Great

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