is_ given) as an
endowment in perpetuity to a haughty political interest, to a corrival of
Trinity college, to a body that _has_ moved jealousy in every quarter, and
finally, (which sickens us to recollect,) to a body that will have the
audacity, in concert with Mr O'Connell, one year after every favour shall
have been received, to disown it as a subject for gratitude--acknowledging
it only as the pledge and monument of English panic.

_Secondly_, As to the motives, these grew out of the perils diffused by
the French Revolution. The year 1797, which followed the suggestion of
this pecuniary aid to the Irish priests, was the last year of Burke's
life. In what light he viewed the contagion from the anti-social frenzy
then spreading over Europe, may be seen from the oracular works through
which he spoke his mind both in 1796 and 1797. He was profoundly impressed
with the disorganizing tendencies of the principles, but still more of the
licentious cravings for change, which from the centre of Paris had crept
like a mist over the whole face of Europe. France was in a less tumultuous
state then than in 1792-3-4; but, as respected Europe generally, the
aspect of things was worse; because naturally the explosion of frenzy in
Paris during the Reign of Terror, took a space of two or three years to
reproduce and train the corresponding sympathies in other great capitals
of the Continent. By 1797, the contagion was mature. Thence came the
necessity for some _domestic_ establishment where Irish priests should be
educated: it was no longer safe that they should resort to St Omers: both
because the unsettled license of thinking upon all things established
would form the very worst atmosphere for clerical sobriety; and more
specifically because all the Jacobins of the time bore deadly hatred to
England. The priests trained at St Omers, would in fact have become a
corps of spies, decoys, and conspirators in the service of France. The
rebellion of '98 read a commentary on this text. And no policy, therefore,
could have been wiser than to intercept such a result by a periodical
grant to Maynooth; whilst the requisite dependency of the institution was
secured by making the grant annual. Now, however, not only is it proposed
to make it permanent, which (together with the enlarged amount) totally
changes its character, but a greater change still is--that the original
reason for any grant at all, the _political_ reason, has entirely passed
awa