to the prejudice of the old and admirable article prepared by the
Church. I would counsel my lords the Bishops to keep their eyes
upon that holy village, and its vicinity; they will find there a
zeal in making converts far superior to anything which exists among
the Catholics; a contempt for the great mass of English clergy, much
more rooted and profound; and a regular fund to purchase livings for
those groaning and garrulous gentlemen whom they denominate (by a
standing sarcasm against the regular Church) Gospel preachers and
vital clergymen. I am too firm a believer in the general propriety
and respectability of the English clergy, to believe they have much
to fear either from old nonsense or from new; but if the Church must
be supposed to be in danger, I prefer that nonsense which is grown
half venerable from time, the force of which I have already tried
and baffled, which at least has some excuse in the dark and ignorant
ages in which it originated. The religious enthusiasm manufactured
by living men before my own eyes disgusts my understanding as much,
influences my imagination not at all, and excites my apprehensions
much more.

I may have seemed to you to treat the situation of public affairs
with some degree of levity; but I feel it deeply, and with nightly
and daily anguish; because I know Ireland; I have known it all my
life; I love it, and I foresee the crisis to which it will soon be
exposed. Who can doubt but that Ireland will experience ultimately
from France a treatment to which the conduct they have experienced
from England is the love of a parent, or a brother? Who can doubt
but that five years after he has got hold of the country, Ireland
will be tossed away by Bonaparte as a present to some one of his
ruffian generals, who will knock the head of Mr. Keogh against the
head of Cardinal Troy, shoot twenty of the most noisy blockheads of