er should chance to be disarmed, and its adversary, from a feeling
of magnanimity, should restore the sword which had been knocked out of
its hand, the See of Rome always endeavoured on the first opportunity to
plunge the said sword into its adversary's bosom; conduct which the man
in black seemed to think was very wise, and which he assured me had
already enabled it to get rid of a great many troublesome adversaries,
and would, he had no doubt, enable it to get rid of a great many more.

On my attempting to argue against the propriety of such behaviour, the
man in black cut the matter short by saying that if one party was a fool
he saw no reason why the other should imitate it in its folly.

After musing a little while, I told him that emancipation had not yet
passed through the legislature, and that perhaps it never would;
reminding him that there was often many a slip between the cup and the
lip; to which observation the man in black agreed, assuring me, however,
that there was no doubt that emancipation would be carried, inasmuch as
there was a very loud cry at present in the land--a cry of 'tolerance,'
which had almost frightened the Government out of its wits; who, to get
rid of the cry, was going to grant all that was asked in the way of
toleration, instead of telling the people to 'hold their nonsense,' and
cutting them down provided they continued bawling longer.

I questioned the man in black with respect to the origin of this cry; but
he said, to trace it to its origin would require a long history; that, at
any rate, such a cry was in existence, the chief raisers of it being
certain of the nobility, called Whigs, who hoped by means of it to get
into power, and to turn out certain ancient adversaries of theirs called
Tories, who were for letting things remain _in statu quo_; that these
Whigs were backed by a party amongst the people called Radicals, a
specimen of whom I had seen in the public-house; a set of fellows who
were always in the habit of bawling against those in place; 'and so,' he
added, 'by means of these parties, and the hubbub which the Papists and
other smaller sects are making, a general emancipation will be carried,
and the Church of England humbled, which is the principal thing which the
See of Rome cares for.'

On my telling the man in black that I believed that, even among the high
dignitaries of the English Church, there were many who wished to grant
perfect freedom to religions of all d