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"In fact, religious liberty was his favourite theme; and when he dwelt upon it, his periods rolled with more than his ordinary magnificence. How greatly did his nephew yesterday bring the uncle before all of us who remembered him! I have great pleasure to say that, when the Catholic Relief Bill was pending in 1791, Mr. Pitt exerted all his powers in our cause. You know what favourites we were with Mr. Burke-how Mr. Wyndham spoke of us— that a wish for our emancipation was the last word uttered by Mr. Grattan. What men were these! How great is their authority!

"I am sure that yesterday, whenever the Duke of Wellington's great and glorious victory at Waterloo, and our hopes of him, were mentioned, it brought to your mind the oration for Marcellus, in which Cicero shews so admirably how greatly a general shares his triumphs with his officers and his soldiers, but that a deed of clemency is all his own. Should not his Grace, should

not his Grace's friends, sometimes think of this?

"I had the pleasure of sitting next to our common friend, Dr. Thomas Rees. May God bless you both! Though we now pray in different churches, may we, and all who joined us yesterday, meet in the celestial tabernacle, and sing the praises of the Almighty, and bless his holy name through all eternity!

"Excuse my taking this liberty, and believe me, with the most heartfelt thanks to you and your friends for your celestial deed of yesterday, "Your and their most obliged and most obedient servant, CHARLES BUTLER."

Rev. Robert Aspland to Mr. Charles Butler.

"Hackney, Tuesday, June 24, 1828. "My dear Sir,-I thought nothing could have added to my enjoyment in connection with the meeting of Wednesday last, but you have, by your generous expression of approbation, not only renewed, but also heightened my pleasure. Accept my thanks for your too flattering encomium; you magnify far too much my humble services to our common cause of liberty; but you do not overrate my zeal for the restoration of my Roman Catholic brethren to their ancient and unalienable rights of conscience.

"It was, my dear Sir, a proud thing for us, who have ever maintained the civil right to religious liberty, to see on Wednesday such an assemblage of our Dissenting brethren, the most important in every respect which I have known, declaring with uncontrollable enthusiasm their sympathy with the still oppressed Catholics. Be assured that an impulse was given on that day to the Dissenting mind, which must, in its effects, be favourable to your particular question.

"I say Amen to your pious and heavenly wishes. There are bigots every where, and in many things we offend all.' I was brought up to think every evil of persons of your profession; but your books of piety soon disabused my mind and heart, and I have never read without high gratification your Martyrologies, abounding with so many examples of heroic Christianity. I can now delight in the hope of meeting Roman Catholics of all ages and countries in the Heavenly Father's mansions; and my joy is yet greater from knowing that multitudes of them breathe the same hope with regard to us, whom they cannot but regard as mistaken brethren.

"May the spirit of Charity be poured out upon all denominations, and may Christians prove their relationship towards their Divine Master, by manifesting the same mind that was in him.'

"I take the liberty to send with this, a copy (I fear hastily transcribed by some young clerk) of our Unitarian Association resolutions, one of which, relating to the Roman Catholics, I have already had the honour of transmitting to Mr. Blount.

"The bearer of this is my son Sydney, who is training up for the profession of the law, in the office of my friends Taylor and Roscoe, and who is desirous

of the honour of seeing one so distinguished as yourself in your profession, in literature, and in the defence of liberty.

"I remain, dear Sir, your much obliged friend and devoted servant,

ROBERT ASPLAND."

Lord Holland to Rev. Robert Aspland.

"Holland House, June 20, 1828. "Dear Sir, I have been prevailed upon, against my better judgment, to revise my speech,† on moving the repeal of the Test Acts, for the Parliamentary Debates, and the editor has sent me some copies paged and sewed up separately. I shall be flattered by your accepting one in remembrance of our communications and intercourse on this interesting and important question, and I have ventured to enclose one.

"If you ever come to this side of London, it would gratify me extremely to see you at Holland House, and to have an opportunity of thanking you, vivấ voce, for many personal as well as public favours, fresh and of older date, for which I feel myself very sensibly your obliged

VASSALL HOLLAND.

"P.S. I generally breakfast between half-past ten and eleven o'clock, and if you can call in any morning at that hour, shall be happy to see you."

This long Chapter must contain one further extract from the Diary: "Saturday, June 28.-Breakfasted at Holland House. Present Lord and Lady Holland, Sir James Mackintosh and Mr. Allen. The conversation was very interesting. In allusion to part of my speech at Freemasons' Hall, he talked of the doors of the Universities being thrown open to Dissenters; how it was to be done, by by-laws or Act of Parliament? I told him my own case -sent from the neighbourhood of Cambridge to Aberdeen-and he cried out 'Abominable!' He confirmed the report of the King's personal hostility to the late repeal, and said he almost exacted a pledge from Ministers to oppose it. He told me that he had an offer of coming into the Ministry with Mr. Canning, but refused on account of his pledges to Dissenters. Lady Holland admitted me after breakfast to her drawing-room, and shewed me the box Napoleon sent to her, with a few lines in his own handwriting, a little before his death,—indeed, the last exertion of his pen,—and inquired where she might send me an engraving of it."

*This letter is taken verbatim from the Catholic Journal, June 28, 1828, in which it was, at Mr. Butler's earnest request, printed. The Editor, referring to the Commemoration dinner, says (June 21), "The effusions-we cannot call them speeches-of Lord John Russell and Lord Holland-names never now to be separated from the cause of religious liberty-of Mr. Brougham, Mr. Denman and Sir Francis Burdett;-above all, that beautiful discourse of the Rev. Mr. Aspland-beautiful, almost divine, in its spirit of charity, are already in every part of the country; and if they do not finally expel from it every impulse of bigotry, there is no authority in wisdom, no virtue in persuasion, no influence in example."

†The speech, as revised, was printed in Christian Reformer (12mo), XIV. 277, 308.

CRITICAL NOTICES.

A Hand-book for London, Past and Present. By Peter Cunningham. In Two Volumes. Post 8vo. Pp. 933. Murray. 1849.

THE Guide-books of England are not generally creditable to our literature. They commonly swarm with blunders, and exhibit every conceivable fault of style. Mr. C. Knight began a series of respectable Country Guides, and Messrs. How and Parsons another; but neither enterprize received adequate support. Mr. Murray's Continental Guide or Hand-books enjoy an European reputation, and are as indispensable to the English traveller abroad, as Paterson's Roadbook was at home in the days of post-chaises and stage-coaches. The volumes now published as a Guide to London, both past and present, are a valuable addition to our literature, and meet a want which every reader must at times have felt, yet knew not where to get supplied. The elaborate execution of his work by Mr. Cunningham, and the copious, curious and very amusing illustrations by which he has enriched it, have one inconvenience,—a work of nearly a thousand pages, even when broken into two volumes, is somewhat too weighty for a pleasant hand-book. For the purposes of the hasty traveller, a compendious abridgment of this book may be a desirable work; but subsequent editions (which we doubt not will be called for) for our libraries will probably increase, rather than diminish, in bulk.

The Hand-book is the result of seven years' labour, and shews its author to have been indefatigable in antiquarian research, in manuscripts as well as printed books. He has ransacked parish books, church registers, and the works of dramatists, poets, historians and biographers, in order to assign a definite locality to a thousand facts and names with which every well-read man is familiar. Mr. Cunningham has adopted the dictionary form, arranging each locality in its alphabetical order. To those acquainted with the outlines of London, a topographical arrangement would present greater convenience. Nor does the dictionary form supersede (as the author pleads) the necessity of an index. The alphabetical order of places is no index to the innumerable names and historical events referred to, and to the quotations from the poets and prose writers of England. Specimen passages may be taken with success almost at hap-hazard-thus,

"ALLHALLOWS, BREAD STREET.-A church in Bread Street, Cheapside, and in Bread Street Ward, erected by Wren, in 1680, for the sum of £3348. 7s. 2d. The old church, in which Milton was baptized, was destroyed in the Great Fire; the register preserves the entry of the poet's baptism. There is an event in the life of Alderman Richard Reed, who was buried in this church, curiously characteristic of the age he lived in. Henry VIII., in want of money for his Northern wars, levied a contribution by way of benevolence (as it was then miscalled), and Alderman Reed was assessed at £200, equal at least to a thousand pounds of our present money. This he refused to pay, and the Lords of the Council punished the disobedient Alderman in a way he was wholly unprepared for. They sent him down to the Warden of the Middle Marches, there to serve as a soldier, and get both he and his men at his own charge;' that as he could not find it in his heart to disburse a little quantity of his substance, he might do some service for his country with his body, whereby,' the letter goes on to say, he might be somewhat instructed of the difference between the sitting quietly in his house and the travail and danger which others daily do sustain, whereby he hath hitherto been maintained in the same.' Reed underwent the sharp discipline of the Northern wars, and was taken prisoner by the Scotch. He was glad before long to make his peace with the King, and purchased his ransom, as Lord Herbert tells us, at a heavy rate."-Pp. 13, 14.

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"ANDREW'S (ST.), HOLBORN.— *** Hacket, afterwards a Bishop, and the author of the Life of Lord Keeper Williams, was several years rector of this church. One Sunday, while he was reading the Common Prayer in St. Andrew's, a soldier of the Earl of Essex came and clapped a pistol to his breast, and com

manded him to read no further. Not at all terrified, Hacket said he would do what became a divine, and he might do what became a soldier. He was permitted to proceed. Another eminent Rector was Stillingfleet, afterwards a Bishop; and a third, eminent in a different way, was the far-famed Sacheverell, whose Trial' is matter of English history. Sacheverell is buried in the chancel of the church, under an inscribed stone (d. 1724). In the south aisle is a tablet to the memory of Emery the actor (d. 1822). William Whiston, the Nonconformist preacher, was a constant attendant at this church. His principles becoming known, Sacheverell admonished him to forbear taking the communion in his church; but still persisting, he at length had him turned out. Whiston complained in print, and then moved into another parish. The parish registers record the baptism and burial of two of our most unfortunate Sons of Song: under the 18th January, 1696-7, the baptism of Richard Savage; and under the 28th of August, 1770, the burial of Thomas Chatterton. Savage was born in Fox Court, Brooke Street, and Chatterton died in Brooke Street. Savage died in Bristol, and Chatterton was born in Bristol. There are other interesting entries in the register:-the marriage (1598) of Edward Coke, 'the Queen's AttorneyGeneral, and my Lady Elizabeth Hatton;' the marriage (1638) of Colonel Hutchinson and Lucy Apsley (Mrs. Hutchinson's Memoirs are well known); the burial (1643) of Nathaniel Tomkins, executed for his share in Waller's plot; the burial (1802) of Joseph Strutt, author of 'Sports and Pastimes.'"-Pp. 20, 21. "CROSS STREET, HATTON GARDEN.-William Whiston, the divine and friend of Sir Isaac Newton, lived in this street; and here he held, in 1715, a solemn assembly for religious worship, according to a liturgy of his own composing."

P. 248.

He might have added, on the authority of Whiston himself, that in this same house, to which he had given the name of "The Primitive Library," the celebrated Flamsteed had previously lived.

Under the words, "The Monument," we find the following account of the inscriptions on that memorial of the Great Fire of London:

"The following English inscription was at one time to be read round the plinth, beginning at the west:-THIS PILLAR WAS SET VP IN PERPETUALL REMEMBRANCE OF THAT MOST DREADFUL BURNING OF THIS PROTESTANT CITY, BEGUN AND CARRIED ON BY YE TREACHERY AND MALICE OF THE POPISH FACTIONS IN YE BEGINNING OF SEPTEM. IN THE YEAR OF OUR LORD 1666, IN ORDER TO YE CARRYING ON THEIR HORRID PLOTT FOR EXTIRPATING THE PROTESTANT RELIGION AND OLD ENGLISH LIBERTY, AND THE INTRODUCING POPERY AND SLAVERY. And the inscription on the north side concluded as follows:-SED FUROR PAPISTICUS QVI TAM DIRA PATRAVIT, NONDUM RESTINGUITUR.

"These offensive paragraphs formed no part of the original inscription, written by Dr. Gale, but were added in 1681, by order of the Court of Aldermen, when Titus Oates and his plot had filled the city with a fear and horror of the Papists. They were obliterated in the reign of James II., re-cut deeper than before in the reign of William III., and finally erased (by an act of Common Council) January 26, 1831."-P. 568.

Mr. Cunningham illustrates this subject by some well-chosen extracts from Addison's Freeholder, No. 47, recording the visit of the Tory foxhunter to the place; from Pope, containing the well-known lines beginning,

"Where London's column, pointing at the skies,
Like a tall bully, lifts the head and lies,"

and from Southey and Roger North.

These volumes record some strange changes in the uses to which buildings are applied. The right reverend and venerable patrons of the Society for the Propagation of the Gospel in Foreign Parts, now assemble at No. 79, Pall Mall, which was formerly the house of Nell Gwyn. The celebrated Baptist chapel of Devonshire Square, Bishopsgate, occupies a portion of the site of Fisher's Folly." Jasper Fisher, one of the six clerks, built here a large and beautiful house, with gardens of pleasure, bowling-alleys, &c. Having little property, he could not maintain so sumptuous a place, and it passed to the Earl of Oxford, and afterwards to the Earl of Devonshire, but still retained its

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derisive name. Butler, in his Hudibras, makes use of the term to heap odium on the Rump Parliament,

"That represent no part o' th' nation

But Fisher's-folly congregation."

Essex House, so interesting to Unitarians as the residence and place of worship of the confessor Lindsey, and his friend and biographer Belsham (a circumstance unnoticed in the Hand-book), stands on a portion of the site of a noble mansion, which was originally the town-house of the see of Exeter, by lease from the Knights of St. John of Jerusalem. It was inhabited during the civil wars by the Earl of Essex, the Parliamentary General; and in the Cavalier songs of the period is described as "Cuckold's Hall." It was afterwards tenanted by the Lord Treasurer Southampton, and the Lord Keeper Sir Orlando Bridgman. In a portion of Essex House, the Cottonian library was kept between the years 1712 and 1730. But this was not on the same premises as Mr. Lindsey's residence and chapel, but a tenement which was occupied by Paterson, an auctioneer, till 1777, when it was pulled down. Mr. Lindsey opened Essex chapel April 17, 1774.

Mr. Cunningham's book is strangely deficient in Ecclesiastical and especially Nonconformist antiquities, a great defect so far as it concerns the city of London, over the history of which Puritanism and Protestant Nonconformity have exercised a most important influence. Under "Nag's Head Tavern, Cheapside," all that we find is, that it stood at the east end of Friday Street, and that a nag's head in stone is still to be seen in front of the house, No. 39, Cheapside. It surely behoved Mr. Cunningham to give some account of the Popish fiction which attempted to invalidate the succession of Protestant Prelates, by alleging that Matthew Parker was consecrated Archbishop of Canterbury in the year 1559, not, according to proper ecclesiastical rule, at the chapel at Lambeth, but at the Nag's Head Tavern in Cheapside, by Scory, the Bishop elect of Hereford, who (as the tale was put out for the first time forty years after the event), on the refusal of the Bishop of Landaff to take part in the ceremony, bade the Bishops elect to kneel down, and, placing the Bible on their heads or shoulders, said, "Take thou authority to preach the word of God sincerely," and so they rose up all Bishops. Dr. Lingard admits the regularity of Parker's consecration; but endeavours to find an apology for the inventors of the fable respecting it, by supposing that there was some previous meeting to arrange the details of it at the Nag's Head Tavern. The "Handbook" should certainly also notice the fact stated by Bishop Burnet, that Bishops did occasionally retire with their civilians, after the ceremony of confirmation at Bow Church, to dine at the Nag's Head Tavern, a circumstance indicating the prevalence of manners widely differing from those of the last half century.

In connection with "Sion College, London Wall," which was founded in 1623 by Dr. Thomas White, which Fuller, who largely used it, quaintly styles "a Ramah for the Sons of the Prophets in London," nothing is told us of the important meetings held there by the Presbyterian clergy during the Commonwealth. It was in reference to the weekly meetings held at this place that Milton, in his "Tenure of Kings," denounced them as "a pack of clergymen" assembling to "belly cheer in their presumptuous Sion ;" and sternly hints that their meetings tended to "abuse and gull the simple laity, and stir up tumult as the Prelates did, for the maintenance of their pride and avarice." But, notwithstanding Milton's denunciations, the Presbyterian ministers continued to meet at Sion College for more than twelve years. In the Life of Baxter it is explained how they lost the control of the College: "May 7th, 1661-There was a meeting at Sion College of the Ministers of London for the choice of a President and Assistants for the next year. Some of the Presbyterians upon a pettish scruple absenting themselves, the Diocesan party carried it, and got the possession and rule of the College." Large additions respecting Sion College might be made by searching contemporary chronicles and pamphlets.

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