And Popish purses pay the tolls, In plain honest prose, while the established religion continues to exist in Ireland, Popish treachery and Popish crime shall never cease. Moore knows them best if they be libelled, Tommy is the delinquent. But how grateful this vindication of Captain Rock's exploits must be to their feel ings, may be well known by the fact, that from all his various productions, Moore selects the authorship of this as the most pleasing and appropriate title under which he can now address them, when he steps forward to vindicate and defend their religion. Paddy loves his national music, and Moore might have called himself the poet and the harmonizer of these beautiful strains. Paddy delights in sedition under the government of Protestant England, and Moore might have recommended himself as the biographer and panegyrist of Lord Edward Fitzgerald; but no-sweeter than any music to the ear of Popery-dearer than even the sound of sedition itself, was And O! what a picture does it present-what a just and appropriate association of the crimes which have rent and ruined this miserable country, with the superstition which has degraded and debased it-crimes, from the bare recital of which humanity recoils-superstition from which Christianity revolts-when this is prefixed as an acceptable dedication to Roman Catholics. To the people of Ireland, Ancient national Faith By their devoted servant, And whether we consider Moore himself as the author of Little's poems, the betrayer of his unfortunate friend Lord Byron's confidential correspondence the Biographer of Lord Edward Fitzgerald-the Vindicator of Captain Rock, or now the grave, elaborate, inveterate, but stupid Defender of the superstitions of the Church of Rome. Let it stand as a useful and most important lesson to the Protestants of the United Empire-to the Statesmanthe Moralist-the Philosopher, and the Christian. Let it come forth and appeal as a startling fact to all soberminded Roman Catholics who are open to conviction of the plainest truth. That the most revolting specimens of profligacy and impiety that can corrupt the human mind-the most traitorous appeals to the seditious feelings and passions of a nation-the most abominable vindications of midnight crimes, of plunder and assassination, can all co-exist in the same mind and come forth from the same pen with a grave elaborate defence of the Religion of the Church of Rome. There are the morals, let even the Comet pronounce on them; there are the politics, let Captain Rock or the whitefeet prove them; here is the religion, let us seek it in the Travels of this celebrated Irish Gentleman. There is another point in this Dedication worthy of notice "To the People of Ireland, Of their ancient national Faith!” Here we have O'Connell out-O'Connelled. He allows that there are a few poor Protestants out of the millions. But Moore does not allow that there is such a thing worth even mentioning. Who are the people of Ireland? "The Catholics-professors of the ancient national faith," saith Tommy. Are there no Protestants? O, none worth speaking of; the Catholics alone are the people of Ireland." We just point this out as a specimen of the impudence and falsehood that characterises this work throughout. We shall use these inestimable volumes for the especial purpose of holding up Popery to public view. The points of superstition which they attempt to defend we shall notice in a future number if we are spared to do so. But there is one other subject developed in them connected with their author, with which we shall conclude at present, and which we are unable to look at without the deepest abhorrence and disgust, and that is the melancholy exhibition which they give of the unchanged character of Popish bigotry and intolerance, joined with the most insidious and revolting display of Jesuitical treachery and deceit. To enter into this subject we must advert to former times, when it was the interest of Popery to persuade the Protestants of the Empire, that their religion had become so mild and so tolerant that it was cruel to exclude them from a share in the administration of the laws. This was the universal cry of the advocates of Popish emancipation. It was argued that it was unjust in the extreme to impute to men principles that they disowned-that it was hard to hold the present generation accountable for the sentiments of their ancestors to suppose them governed by motives which influenced men in the 13th century-it was worse than the intolerance which you imputed to them-it was the worst species of per secution to charge them and visit them with the consequences of an intolerance which they abjured-that the doctrine that all men were to be damned who would not submit to the authority of the Church of Rome, was totally unknown among Roman Catholics of this day, and that, in fact, all educated Roman Catholics laughed at these antiquated superstitions. Hence arose all the bitter invectives against the bigoted opponents of emancipation; hence the well-known charge of their reading history like an old almanack, and hence, in short, the ground which Popery so gained in public opinion as finally to carry the question of emancipation. Now, during the long struggle for this concession the whole aim of Roman Catholics was to prove by every indirect and plausible argument, and where it could be safely done by every direct assurance, declaration, and oath, that their opinions and sentiments as to intolerance, were totally changed-hence Dr. Doyle's letters to Lord Liverpool hence that Jesuit's protestations as to his oaths-hence his suggestions on oath as to how tithes might be more easily collected-hence his oath as to Church property, that he would never attempt to disturb it, on which his subsequent conduct has been an admirable comment. It is enough. "Crimine ab uno Disce omnes." Now of all the Roman Catholics who laboured to produce this impression on the public mind, the first and foremost was Thomas Moore. Was Popery and all its superstitions to be ridiculed? Tommy Moore mounted on his Pegasus, and rode roughshod over them. Take this specimen-not intended for the Boudoir, but written, published, and sung, if we mistake not, by the little heretical Anacreon himself, at the Kilkenny theatricals:— Poh, Dermot, go long with your goster, You might as well pray at a jig, honey, Teach an old cow pater noster, Or whistle Mol Roe to a pig, honey, &c. Anything else I can do for you, Kead mille falthagh and welcome; Put up an ave or two for you, Fear'd that you'd ever to hell come. If you confess you're a rogue, I'll just turn a deaf ear and not care for't, But just tip you a hint to go barefoot. If you've the whiskey in play, To oblige you I'll come take a smack of it, Aye, and twenty-four hours to the back of it. Now if this had been written by a Protestant even at that day, it would have been quoted, and justly, as a specimen of indecent ribaldry and profane scoffing at a religion, which, however false, ought not to be ridiculed anywhere,much less on the stage. But here we have a Papist himself turning confessionprayers to the Virgin-penance-beads and purgatory, all into the grossest ridicule, and that in the most indecent manner, in the character of a drunken Priest, upon the public stage. There was something more behind the scenes in this farce-some other besides stage effect to be produced. It was important to show on good authority that the superstitions of Popery had lost their influence upon the human mind in Ireland. What could possibly be more effective than this? We shall now shift the scene. It changes to a drawing-room, and Tommy is discovered with the dress and paunch of the drunken Friar laid Poh, Dermot, &c. aside, in that attitude in which certainly he is seductive, accomplished, and delightful-in which had his strains been as refined in principle as in poetry, and had he never strayed from his sphere into that of the profligate libertine-the seditious politician-or the superstitious polemic, he had been an ornament to the annals of genius and music, we mean sitting at his piano forte, and singing some of his own poetry to the beautiful melodies of his country. But even in these we trace sometimes the bacchinal, sometimes the profligate, sometimes the fiery demagogue, and now, we lament to add, sometimes the arch hypocrite and traitor, pretending a liberality which it now too plainly appears was put on, only to deceive. Are the superstitions of Popery, her doctrines of exclusive salvation to be scouted from the festal halls of liberal Ireland--let Tommy now begin his song, and who can banish them like he? Come send round the wine and leave points of belief, This moment's a flower too fair and brief To be withered and stained with the dust of the schools. But while they are filled from the same bright bowl, Shall I ask the brave soldier who fights by my side To seek somewhere else a more orthodox kiss? Shall he repress the union of sympathies and feelings between Protes tants and Roman Catholics as the one most ardent wish of his patriotic soul for his country? Shall he breathe charity and liberality in the most bewitching strains and sweetest melody? 66 Then let him begin that sweetest of all Irish melodies, Aileen Aroon," with his own words— Erin, the tear and the smile in thine eyes, &c. Second verse. Erin, thy silent tear never shall cease; Thy various tints unite, Let any human being even read these lines, much less hear the sweet and gentle strain in which they are breathed as the author sings them, and who would dare to say, if Moore was to be taken as the standard of Popish charity and Popish feeling, that we might not as well assert of Popery as of science, that it had not partaken of the march of intellect, and that it remained stationary since the 13th century. Let us now shift the scene again. Shut up the piano forte-leave the drawing-room, and behold Tommy Moore seated in his study, writhing under his wrongs, and writing as the honest and indignant advocate of liberty. 66 Let us imagine him now having just composed his poems and their notes of corruption" and "intolerance," filled with denunciations against Mr. Percival, Dr. Duigenan, and Lord Castlereagh, and with protestations of the cruel injustice done to Roman Catholics, which gave a seeming sanction not only of truth but of dignity to the complaints which he uttered. See first the beautiful picture of toleration, of charity, and of religion, which the poet draws, abjuring the exploded doctrine of damning all heretics, and confining salvation to Rome.-See the creed of Popery :— "His creed is writ on mercy's page above, What wonder that on such liberal poetry, breathing such refined regenerated Christian Popery, we should find the following note. Speaking of Roman Catholics renouncing their Councils and old principles of intolerance— "When the Catholics made these "declarations (and they are almost "weary with making them)-when they show, too, by their conduct, that "these declarations are sincere, and that their faith and morals are 66 no 66 Moore's Poem on Intolerance. "that so many wilfully distrust what every good man is so interested in be"lieving?-That so many should prefer "the dark lantern of the 13th century, to "the sunshine of intellect which has since 66 spread over the world, and that every "dabbler in theology from Mr. Le Mesu"rier down to the Chancellor of the Ex chequer, should dare to oppose the rub"bish of Constance and Latern to the bright triumphant progress of justice, generosity, and truth."-Notes on Intolerance.' 66 Here is Popery expanding her charitable arms to embrace all sects and nations who worship the true God, and more regulated by the absurd decrees “of old councils and Popes than their "science is influenced by the Papal ana"thema against that Irishman who first "found the antipodes, is it not strange "Blessing each voice whate'er its tone may be, That serves to swell the general harmony." Here are the decrees of her old Popes and councils rejected as "absurd;" here are Constance and Lateran trodden under foot; here is an appeal -of candour-of sensibility-of injured honour, and truth, and charity, to the confidence, to the principle, to the feeling of every Protestant; and if ever there was a man, in whose breast science, and literature, and a cordial, and generous reception from Protestants could have extinguished the fires of Popish superstition, that man was Thomas Moore; the cultivated-the classical -the literary-the convivial-the refined-the witty companion-the constant associate of the nobles-of the literati of the day-the universal appendage at the table, the drawingroom, and the boudoir-telling his stories-singing his songs-the very beau ideal of literature-of anecdote of poetry-of music. Surely, if Popery and its superstitions, retain their influence over the mind of such a man as this, if not only so, but they can make him such a Jesuit as to renounce them all to gain an end, and then to re-assert and vindicate them, when he has attained it if they can make him so to play his part into ridicule, so to disclaim them that he would have been selected from all the nations as the purest specimen of the improvement and amelioration of his religion, and that after all he can turn about and exhibit himself as the asserted vindicator and defender of all Popish superstitions, not only back to the 13th century, but through every century back to Ananias and Sapphira. If he and Dr. Doyle, and the Roman Catholics of Ireland were such sycophants, and turn out such traitors, then Popery shall be exhibited in its influence, and its effects, its falsehood, its treachery, its servility, and its superstition, as the very vilest effusion of Satan, that ever issued from the talents of that demon. Now, what does Moore's present publication exhibit? That every word he ever wrote and professed at that time upon the subject, was the acting, the fawning, and the treachery of a Jesuit; and that if he had written, and spoken, and sung "Come send round the wine here is the gentle Orpheusculus of the ladies, who sits down so softly to his as he felt, instead of such specimens of These were the last worthy words of a Having from the earliest times of "the faith such examples to warn them, "and adhering firmly to the principle "of oneness enjoined by Christ himself, the heads of the church continued to "act invariably upon the system, of requiring all within the fold to follow the one shepherd, and if any resisted or dissented, cast them forth from the flock. To this exclusion no less 66 66 66 66 66 66 66 ever stern and tremendous such a decree "must appear, they who had been taught "that there was but one Lord, one faith, one baptism,' and who held therefore that "he who was not in the ark must perish by the deluge, could not with any sincerity pronounce a more lenient sen"tence."-Vol. I. pp. 194, 195. 66 And in the same page, in a note, he quotes, with a similar juggling application in favour of Popery and against Protestants the synodal epistle of the council of Zerta, drawn up by St. Augustin against the Donatists : "Whoever is separated from this Ca"tholic Church, however innocently he 66 may think he lives, for this crime alone, "that he is separated from the unity of Christ, will not have life, but the anger "of God remains upon him.” Here is the sweet festive Anacreon, that sits down at the convivial board and sings and leave points of belief," piano, and sings so sentimentally of religious harmony— |