k had prepared the beverage, and
tasted it.

'Hope!' said the man in black; 'how can we fail? Is not the Church of
these regions going to lose its prerogative?'

'Its prerogative?'

'Yes; those who should be the guardians of the religion of England are
about to grant Papists emancipation, and to remove the disabilities from
Dissenters, which will allow the Holy Father to play his own game in
England.'

On my inquiring how the Holy Father intended to play his game, the man in
black gave me to understand that he intended for the present to cover the
land with temples, in which the religion of Protestants would be
continually scoffed at and reviled.

On my observing that such behaviour would savour strongly of ingratitude,
the man in black gave me to understand that if I entertained the idea
that the See of Rome was ever influenced in its actions by any feeling of
gratitude I was much mistaken, assuring me that if the See of Rome in any
encounter should chance to be disarmed, and its adversary, from a feeling
of magnanimity, should restore the sword which had been knocked out of
its hand, the See of Rome always endeavoured on the first opportunity to
plunge the said sword into its adversary's bosom; conduct which the man
in black seemed to think was very wise, and which he assured me had
already enabled it to get rid of a great many troublesome adversaries,
and would, he had no doubt, enable it to get rid of a great many more.

On my attempting to argue against the propriety of such behaviour, the
man in black cut the matter short by saying that if one party was a fool
he saw no reason why the other should imitate it in its folly.

After musing a little while, I told him that emancipation had not yet
passed through the legislature, and that perhaps it never would;
reminding him that there was often many a slip between the cup and the
lip; to which observation the man in black agreed, assuring me, however,
that there was no doubt that emancipation would be carried, inasmuch as
there was a very loud cry at present in the land--a cry of 'tolerance,'
which had almost frightened the Government out of its wits; who, to get
rid of the cry, was going to grant all that was asked in the way of
toleration, instead of telling the people to 'hold their nonsense,' and
cutting them down provided they continued bawling longer.

I questioned the man in black with respect to the origin of this cry; but
he said, to trace it to its