former splendour and opulence; never has the slightest attempt been
made to diminish it; and those revolutionary principles, to which so
large a portion of civilised Europe has been sacrificed, have here
failed in making the smallest successful inroad.

The whole history of this proceeding of the Hungarian Diet is so
extraordinary, and such an admirable comment upon the Protestantism
of Mr. Spencer Perceval, that I must compel you to read a few short
extracts from the law itself: --"The Protestants of both confessions
shall, in religious matters, depend upon their own spiritual
superiors alone. The Protestants may likewise retain their trivial
and grammar schools. The Church dues which the Protestants have
hitherto paid to the Catholic parish priests, schoolmasters, or
other such officers, either in money, productions, or labour, shall
in future entirely cease, and after three months from the publishing
of this law, be no more anywhere demanded. In the building or
repairing of churches, parsonage-houses, and schools, the
Protestants are not obliged to assist the Catholics with labour, nor
the Catholics the Protestants. The pious foundations and donations
of the Protestants which already exist, or which in future may be
made for their churches, ministers, schools and students, hospitals,
orphan houses, and poor, cannot be taken from them under any
pretext, nor yet the care of them; but rather the unimpeded
administration shall be intrusted to those from among them to whom
it legally belongs, and those foundations which may have been taken
from them under the last government shall be returned to them
without delay. All affairs of marriage of the Protestants are left
to their own consistories; all landlords and masters of families,
under the penalty of public prosecution, are ordered not to prevent
their subjects and servants, whether they be Catholic or Protestant,