more than horses and oxen. The person who shows the lama at the
corner of Piccadilly has the precaution to write up--ALLOWED BY SIR
JOSEPH BANKS TO BE A REAL QUADRUPED, so his Lordship might have
said--ALLOWED BY THE BENCH OF BISHOPS TO BE REAL HUMAN CREATURES. .
. . I could write you twenty letters upon this subject; but I am
tired, and so I suppose are you. Our friendship is now of forty
years' standing; you know me to be a truly religious man; but I
shudder to see religion treated like a cockade, or a pint of beer,
and made the instrument of a party. I love the king, but I love the
people as well as the king; and if I am sorry to see his old age
molested, I am much more sorry to see four millions of Catholics
baffled in their just expectations. If I love Lord Grenville, and
Lord Howick, it is because they love their country; if I abhor . . .
it is because I know there is but one man among them who is not
laughing at the enormous folly and credulity of the country, and
that he is an ignorant and mischievous bigot. As for the light and
frivolous jester, of whom it is your misfortune to think so highly,
learn, my dear Abraham, that this political Killigrew, just before
the breaking-up of the last administration, was in actual treaty
with them for a place; and if they had survived twenty-four hours
longer, he would have been now declaiming against the cry of No
Popery! instead of inflaming it. With this practical comment on the
baseness of human nature, I bid you adieu!



LETTER III.