shrine, the tomb, and the abbey of St. Henry. Religion wants some new stimulus of this kind, and, Cromwell-like, I really think you are the man to furnish it. Like David you have prayed and sung psalms; like Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego, you have escaped the fiery furnace, unsinged, and unhurt; like Daniel you have been in the lions' den; like Jonah you have been in the whale's belly, only you had an opportunity of frying your small fish, which Jonah had not: like Jesus Christ you are a great Reformer; aud like St. Paul you have been persecuted and imprisoned. If the parallels go on in this way the relics of St. Henry, in another century, will become a most valuable treasure, and like Aaron's rod, will bud, grow, and swallow up all other relics.

A word or two by way of contradiction. In the year 1818, on the first of June, when there was a meeting at the Crown and Anchor about returning you for Westminster, you and a few select friends dined together after the meeting was over: after dinner, among other toasts, you began to address the company in a very grave manner, and to complain that justice had not been done to the writings and memory of Thomas Paine, you eulogized his writings, as of the most important kind, without particularizing any of them, and concluded by toasting his memory, which was well received by the company; and the circumstance greatly excited my attachment to you at that moment. As soon as you heard of my prosecution for publishing "The Age of Reason" in 1819, you instantly assured me, that you would give me your support at the time of trial. At the Lent Assizes of that year, you had a cause to defend at Winchester; whilst there, you were surrounded by some avowed Republicans and Deists, to whom you expressed a strong satisfaction as to the line of conduct I was pursuing, and assured them that you would be with me at the time of trial. I was in Winchester in April, the month following, and received this information and congratulation from the mouths of the very men.

When the time of trial came on, my private wish was, that you should not be present, as I knew you were particularly unpopular among the men who were to form my Juries: that wish was expressed to many persons, although it was impossible that I could then have stated it to you. I never gave you the least notice of the approach of my trial, with a hope of keeping you away, but on the eleventh of October you came to town, and finding me absent from

home, you entreated Mrs. Carlile to inform me that you were ready to be with me, and that I would drop you a note, or see you the moment I came into town the next morning. I did not listen to this appointment from the aforementioned reasons, but you came just as I was prepared to start to the Court, and it was then suggested to you by one of my friends present, that your presence would not serve me. You rejected the suggestion with disdain, placed yourself in the same coach with me, and I will give you credit for doing every thing for me that lay in your power during the moment of trial, and behaving towards me with great kindness and attention. You wished to be first and foremost in every thing connected with the defence; although it was known and visible to all my other friends, that you were not master of the subject; and that you had never studied or examined it. But like many of my other professed friends, who were around me when the verdict was Guilty, you were off, and you have never shewn the least disposition to do me a service since; although you have made professions. On the first trial I was what I may call pestered with friends; on the second, I was left almost alone; at least, those who were then with me, I have found ready to stand by me since: and I often entertain the idea that I shall ultimately find the verdict of Guilty beneficial, by shewing me on whom I may depend in future, and I wish you and every one to understand, that I consider my career as only just beginning.

I met you again in the Court on the Saturday morning, when you expected your cause with Dr. Stoddart to come on, you then took me by the hand, bid me be of good cheer, and stated that you had been one of a meeting on the former evening where a subscription for me was determined: but I heard no more of that; and after the sentence, when you were asked to take the Chair at a public meeting for the purpose, you declined it.

But you were not satisfied with a silent abandonment of me; you wished a public disavowal of all connection, and made yourself ridiculous by so doing: for that you had countenanced my career up to the verdict of Guilty against me, was notorious to all the country.

At the close of my trials, you quitted London for a week or more, and on your return, finding I was not bailed, you made a fuss to Mrs. Carlile about it, upbraided Mr. Dolby in my shop for not interfering, and made him promise to go with you and bail me; assuring Mrs. Carlile when you left

But we

the shop that I should be home in a few hours. heard nothing further of that matter, and you never came near me, until the evening before sentence was to be passed, when you brought a party with you a few minutes before the gates of the Prison were to be shut: a visit I received more as an insult than an act of friendship, which you might have seen by my manners.

The next thing I heard of you was a few days after I got to this Gaol, that at a dinner at the Crown and Anchor, to celebrate the return of Mr. Cobbett from America, you took the occasion to decry all Deists for allowing me to remain in Prison for want of bail: and if that was Deism you did not wish to participate in it. Mr. Cobbett decried Republicans and Republicanism, and so there was a pretty dish of it between you. I did not notice this matter at the time; although the papers highly coloured your expressions, and you were quite willing to let them go forth to the world so coloured, for all you did to counteract it was to express a great deal of anger to Mrs. Carlile upon the matter, and a hope that I should not see it. It appears it mattered nothing who saw it, so as I did not see it. Very kind and generous!

The next act of your illiberality towards me, happened at your trial at York. Scarlett knew it was touching a sore to mention your connection with me, and my presence with you at the Manchester Meeting, and kuowing that it would well answer his purpose to strengthen the prejudices of the Jury, he did not fail to enlarge upon it. In the course of your defence you put the following words to the Jury, of which I did, for once, make a note at the time. "You

have heard the miserable attempt to fix upon me an irreligious connexion with Carlile. I know the man, and if I do not say what I think of him, it is because he is now suffering the sentence of the law, and therefore not a fit subject for any body's animadversion." I ask you, can any thing be conceived more infamous than this, considering what had passed between you and me? Now, you too are under the sentence of the law, and we are upon a perfect equality, and as near neighbours as possible: now, I challenge you to say what you know of Carlile to his prejudice.

In the Court of King's Bench, at the time of your receiving sentence, you attempted to work upon the bigoted feelings of Bailey, by touching the same string, and disavowing an irreligious connexion with me. You had gone too far with me to recover a belief from the public in the

sincerity of your professed religious feelings; and be assured that it has only brought a charge of hypocrisy upon you. I am proud in the boast of having freed my mind.from every thing called religion: and after I witnessed this abandonment of principle, ou your part, I candidly tell you that I derived pleasure from seeing you sent to a neighbouring Goal to fill out a period of imprisonment equivalent to mine. You, your friend the Clergyman, and Parson Harrison, may go a preaching together, if you like, when you are at liberty: I will never encourage you to form an irreligious connection with me again: although, I shall be ever willing to support you on all important political questions. I assure you that all the ill-will I feel towards you will be spent upon this paper: nothing of the kind will remain in my bosom: and you may please yourself about re-kindling it: I am quite indifferent.

I shall close with stating another fact. In addition to Mary Fildes, your man Wilde in London has been set to abuse me. I was informed a fortnight before his unpaid letter came to hand, that he was waiting for instructions to do it, but I wish you to understand that nothing that has passed between you and me, shall ever bring me into a dispute with a third person. I will stick to you as long as you like, but I will not notice any thing from a third person, neither will I ever allow any correspondent to attack you, or any other public character, through the pages of "The Republican." Whatever is necessary to be done on that head I will do it myself, and put my own name to it. But I would ask how comes it to pass that you, who have such a distaste for Republicanism and Deism, such a veneration for Monarchy, Aristrocracy, and Divinity, should have in your employ persous so directly opposite in sentiment. At a dinner to celebrate the Birth-day of Thomas Paine, on the 29th of January last; your agent Mr. Wilde, who is an avowed advocate for the politics of Paine, and the theology of Mirabaud, was present. Hearing several names toasted, but not hearing the name of Henry Hunt, like a faithful servant and a good man (which I still believe him to be) he rose, and asked the Chairman, if the name of his master was not on the list of toasts. He was answered in the negative, and displayed an uneasiness, and something like indignation, at what he considered an improper neglect. He was answered by the Chairman, that that meeting was to celebrate the birthday of the greatest Republican and Deist that ever lived, and that Mr. Hunt made it his pecu

liar boast that he was neither of the characters described, therefore, it would be inconsistent to toast his name in conjunction with the name of Thomas Paine. I am informed that Mr. Wilde was by no means appeased, but protested that his master did partake of all the principles of Thomas Paine. However, the name of Henry Hunt was inadmissi ble, as his own writings and avowed principles were considered to preponderate over the assertion of Mr. Wilde. This of course I have at second hand, but it is no invention of mine; if called for my informant is forthcoming.

However, if you can make even the apparent contradictions here stated, you are welcome. It has been my duty to state them in self defence. You have called for them. You admit that religion is not a corruption in your eye, and you state a wish to preserve it. Throughout all our personal meetings I never saw in you any thing in the shape of a profession of religious feeling, and I now think you have as much religion in you as Cromwell's dispersed Parliament, or Cromwell's horse had. I hold religion to be the worst of all corruptions, and most certainly it is my wish to destroy it all, if it be practicable: but I disclaim what you have imputed to me "an intolerant and bigoted dictation." All I dictate is free discussion, and I dictate against all controul of opinion, but nothing further. Toleration, or Intolerance, are words I reject altogether.

As to my being a persecuted bookseller, and not a persecuted Reformer, I may just as well say that you are a persecuted farmer, or a persecuted grain roaster and grinder. It was not the bookselling for which I was prosecuted, but for what the books contained. Jealousy has always jaundiced eyes, and you certainly view things through deranged optics. Respecting what you would have done in Dorchester Gaol, or as to doing the same as you have done in Ilchester Gaol, it would be first necessary that the same abuses should exist; and really I do not see any such abuses in the place, unless it be the dread and close confinement of us blasphemers. But I shall have occasion by and by to say more on this subject. Your Fellow Prisoner, R. CARLILE.

On Monday April 15, will be published, No. I. Price 3d. To be continued Weekly,

LAWRENCE'S LECTURES on PHYSIOLOGY, ZOOLOGY, and the NATURAL HISTORY of MAN, delivered at the Royal College of Surgeons.

Vol. V. No. 15.