achers and teachers of the first excellence: there are men of profound
erudition, men of nice classical taste, and men of the best critical
acumen. They are not formed, it is true, to shine in the drawing-room or at
the tea-table; nor are such qualifications very desirable in churchmen; for
you well know, that the refined manners of fashionable life are often as
incompatible with Christian morality, as the grosser vices of the vulgar
herd. Their manners are, in general, decent; but their exertions are great,
their zeal is indefatigable. See them in the most inclement seasons, at the
most unseasonable hours, in the most uncultivated parts, amidst the poorest
and most wretched of mankind! They are always ready at a call; nothing can
deter them; the sense of duty surmounts every obstacle! And there is no
reward for them in this world! The good effects of their zeal are visible
to every impartial and discerning mind; notwithstanding the many great
disadvantages under which it labours. For instance, you may often find a
parish so extensive and populous as to require two or three clergymen
properly to serve it, and yet the poverty of the parish is such as to be
scarcely able to maintain one in a tolerably decent manner. I could point
out many other disadvantages, but I forbear at present," &c.--"After all,
the good effects are so conspicuous, that, I repeat it, the lower orders of
Irishmen are better instructed in the doctrines of Christianity than the
lower orders of Englishmen."

I cannot speak of the catholic priests in Ireland from my own knowledge,
but the information I have received, from friends well acquainted with the
subject, fully corroborates this character of them. With such a character,
already drawn before the public with genuine marks of candour, is it
possible that any writer to the public should, in calumniating it, say,
that there was no fear of his being contradicted? Was he not contradicted,
if I may use the expression, by anticipation? But uncongenial records are
useless things, like _stern lights_.

[22] Rapin's History of England, vol. ii, page 344.

[23] Hume says, that Campion was put to the rack, and, confessing his
guilt, was publicly executed. The confession of guilt is not so clearly
proved as the putting to the rack. In the life of Campion the confession is
denied; and what Hume himself says immediately before is strong against the
imputed guilt, that he and Parsons were sent to explain the bull