LETTER, &c. "Touch Ralph de Vipont's shield-touch the Hospitaller's shield; "he has the least sure seat, he is your cheapest bargain. "The knight moving onward amid these well-meant hints, as"cended the platform by the sloping alley which led to it "from the lists, and to the astonishment of all present, riding "straight up to the central pavilion, struck with the sharp "end of his spear, the shield of Brian de Bois Guilbert, until it rung again. All stood astonished at his presumption, but none more than the redoubted knight whom he had thus defied to "mortal combat."-IVANHOE. Vol. i. p. 165. Cintra, June 18th 1827. SIR,-I am afraid that an allusion to Ivanhoe may be much more descriptive of the temerity than of the success of my attempt: but it is precisely because you are the boldest champion, because you are the Bois Guilbert of the Anticatholic cause, that I have undertaken to address you. Nor does this, I believe, arise from any B overweening idea of my own powers. At the present period of the Catholic controversy all minor obstacles are cleared away; the skirmishers on each side are called in; the forces are concentrated; and it is useless for a combatant to appear in the field, who is not, trusting in the goodness of his cause and the strength of his weapons, prepared to assail the centre of the enemies position, or to defend the centre of his own. You have placed yourself in the front of the battle, and I cannot enter the field without encountering you. It may be that I had judged better to leave the field to abler combatants, but, being there, to attack you involves no increase of presumption. I have at least this consolation-if I am discomfitted, the overthrow of an unknown champion will not injure my cause. If I might succeed in forcing you back from your imposing position, I shall have performed good service. I had just completed the reading of your two letters to Mr. Canning, when I took up M. de Pradt's" Jesuitisme Ancien et Moderne." When in the very first page I encountered the words which I am about to quote, I certainly did seem to be reading a very pithy description of the pamphlets I had just laid down. "Cet ecrit fut remarqué dans le temps; il ne manque pas de chaleur: on sent que c'est "l'ouvrage d'un predicateur et d'un homme de "parti; il ne renferme pas une vue générale." Though the following sentence dispelled the illusion, it is, mutatis mutandis, sufficiently appropriate to be highly piquant. "Pour l'auteur, le protestantisme de 1787 est "encore le protestantisme de 1550; chez lui, "c'est un idée fixe. Cet écrit est oublié, comme "finissent toujours par l'etre les ouvrages de "parti; la durée n'appartient qu'aux ecrits "d'utilité générale.” There can be no I must speak of myself for a moment to explain why I am so late in the field. Owing to my absence from England, your letters have only just and casually reached me. As I am an habitual reader of the debates in parliament, the first certainly was not new to me. doubt that it has been "remarqué dans le temps," and though we have not yet heard in Portugal that any English legislator has spoken the second, my copy, which announces itself on the cover as being the fifth edition, sufficiently vouches for the notoriety which this production also has attained. Your letters, like Pere l'Enfant's discourse, will soon be forgotten, but it would be idle to suppose that they are not producing a considerable present effect. Your attack must remain unnoticed from the quarter against which it is mainly directed. You enjoy the security, I had almost said the impunity, which sometimes attends a flight at very high game. If Mr. Canning needed a de fence from your attacks, I possess no materials for making it; I hold no commission for the purpose, and that Statesman would doubtless refuse to commit his cause to such obscure hands. But your attack on Mr. Canning is also essentially an appeal to the public on a political question of great and abiding interest; and on that ground I may deal with it without feeling myself an intruder. To you at least, Sir, no, apology can be due. The question, which has called you forth to address the Prime Minister, calls me forth to address the Rector of Stanhope. I shall not set out with professions of an amicable spirit, which are generally unmeaning and frequently insincere; but I trust I shall at least be guilty of no breaches of courtesy, which can entitle the author of the Letters to Mr. Canning to complain. When a writer professing to discuss any question in politics or religion, devotes two thirds of his pages, and at least an equal portion of his zeal, to criticizing the conduct and vilifying the character of the most eminent of his opponents, he can claim no other plausible or even producible excuse, for this divergence from his avowed purpose, than the principle-that to weaken a cause, by destroying the character of its influential advocates, is a fair mode of literary warfare. I will not insult you by supposing that you would vindicate your bitterness against Mr. Canning, by assigning a motive which did not |