How much better would it have been to put in force an existing and old law, which can only be said to be obsolete because the offence against which it provided was obsolete, than to nullify it by a new and uncertain one, satisfying no one, and such as no one believes will, and perhaps the framer does not intend should, be obeyed. Sir Edward Sugden is of that opinion, and can there be a better legal authority? The people of this country have more confidence in old than new laws: they were made with more precision; and it was not then the practice to smuggle into them expressions for ulterior though hidden use. It is the boast of modern legislation, that a coach may be driven through our acts of Parliament. Queen Elizabeth, who would not suffer the legate to touch our shores, right royally said, "I will not have my sheep marked with the brand of a foreign shepherd." Modern liberality would be content to see Queen Victoria the Pope's sheriff. Is it to be borne, that a cardinal legate, whom existing laws exclude, should be allowed to organise a conspiracy of priests, all, not only virtually, but in word and deed, abnegating allegiance to their lawful sovereign? It is their business, it is in their bond, to persecute the majority of their countrymen as heretics, and to effect in the British dominions as much evil as shall so weaken their country as to make her unable to resist the foreign usurpation of their Pope, or even those of our enemies with whom he may be in league. It is surprising that Mr Gladstone should palliate the doings of the Synod of Thurles, and seem to justify them on the right of civil agitation allowed to other leagues. But surely the difference is great. Political agitators, bad as they often are, do not bring the authoritative dictum of a religious synod. The Synod of Thurles denounces with an authority more potent than the law of the land; they appeal not to reason, to policy, but to obedience. The law is given out by the legate, and enforced by the Synod. They know the danger of mooting questions between landlord and tenant; and it is the very danger which tempts them to it. It is in fact a threat, and the first move of its action. It is almost a declaration to this effect:--The Pope, and we in his name, have right to the land, to dispose of it as we please; and if you in the slightest degree resist or interfere with us, we will stir up those who shall take it from you. They know the threat extends to the life as well as property. All means with them are lawful for the one end. Do we, in all these fruits of the aggression, and of the Ministerial favour which created it, see the promised gratitude of the Roman Catholics? Every obstacle to the free exercise of their religion had been removed; and we were to have peace, but have it not, because, from the vantage-ground of their emancipation, a dominant supremacy was to be superadded. The hierarchy is not for the use of the Queen's Roman Catholic subjects, but for the