behind the Speaker's chair about the council of Lateran, and many a
turnpike bill miscarry by the sarcastical controversies of Mr.
Hawkins Brown and Sir John Throckmorton upon the real presence. I
wish I could see some of these symptoms of earnestness upon the
subject of religion; but it really seems to me that, in the present
state of society, men no more think about inquiring concerning each
other's faith than they do concerning the colour of each other's
skins. There may have been times in England when the quarter
sessions would have been disturbed by theological polemics; but now,
after a Catholic justice had once been seen on the bench, and it had
been clearly ascertained that he spoke English, had no tail, only a
single row of teeth, and that he loved port wine--after all the
scandalous and infamous reports of his physical conformation had
been clearly proved to be false--he would be reckoned a jolly
fellow, and very superior in flavour to a sly Presbyterian.
Nothing, in fact, can be more uncandid and unphilosophical than to
say that a man has a tail, because you cannot agree within him upon
religious subjects; it appears to be ludicrous: but I am convinced
it has done infinite mischief to the Catholics, and made a very
serious impression upon the minds of many gentlemen of large landed
property.

In talking of the impossibility of Catholic and Protestant living
together with equal privilege under the same government, do you
forget the Cantons of Switzerland? You might have seen there a
Protestant congregation going into a church which had just been
quitted by a Catholic congregation; and I will venture to say that
the Swiss Catholics were more bigoted to their religion than any
people in the whole world. Did the kings of Prussia ever refuse to
employ a Catholic? Would Frederick the Great have rejected an able