ppiness compared with what he feels who knows
himself to be a rogue, provided he has any feeling at all. What is the
use of a mitre or knighthood to a man who has betrayed his principles?
What is the use of a gilt collar, nay, even of a pair of scarlet
breeches, to a fox who has lost his tail? Oh! the horror which haunts
the mind of a fox who has lost his tail; and with reason, for his very
mate loathes him, and more especially if, like himself, she has lost her
brush. Oh! the horror which haunts the mind of the two-legged rogue who
has parted with his principles, or those which he professed--for what?
We'll suppose a government. What's the use of a government, if the next
day after you have received it, you are obliged for very shame to scurry
off to it with the hoot of every honest man sounding in your ears?
"Lightly liar leaped and away ran."
PIERS PLOWMAN.
But bigotry, it has been said, makes the author write against Popery; and
thorough-going bigotry, indeed, will make a person say or do anything.
But the writer is a very pretty bigot truly! Where will the public find
traces of bigotry in anything he has written? He has written against
Rome with all his heart, with all his mind, with all his soul, and with
all his strength; but as a person may be quite honest, and speak and
write against Rome, in like manner he may speak and write against her,
and be quite free from bigotry; though it is impossible for any one but a
bigot or a bad man to write or speak in her praise; her doctrines,
actions, and machinations being what they are.
Bigotry! The author was born, and has always continued in the wrong
church for bigotry, the quiet, unpretending Church of England; a church
which, had it been a bigoted church, and not long suffering almost to a
fault, might with its opportunities, as the priest says in the text, have
stood in a very different position from that which it occupies at
present. No! let those who are in search of bigotry, seek for it in a
church very different from the inoffensive Church of England, which never
encourages cruelty or calumny. Let them seek for it amongst the members
of the Church of Rome, and more especially amongst those who have
renegaded to it. There is nothing, however false and horrible, which a
pervert to Rome will not say for his church, and which his priests will
not encourage him in saying; and there is nothing, however horrible--the
more horrible indeed and revolt
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