You know there’s a place called Maynooth College, where they bring up Roman Catholic priests for the use of Ireland. Well, there’s a lot of folks who will have it that this college is not a bit better than certain tanks I’ve read of in India, where they breed young crocodiles to be worshipped by people who know no better. Sir Robert Peel intends to give £26,000 a year to this place--it used to have an annual grant of £9000--that the scholars may be increased in number, and that they may be better taught and more comfortably boarded and lodged. Well, the members of the Church of England--although here and there they have grumbled at the matter, and have called the Pope names that pass in small-change at Billingsgate--have been mute as fish compared to the Dissenters. It is they who have fought the fight; it is they who have raised the price of parchment by darkening the House of Commons with clouds of petitions. It is they who have risen to a man, and have patted the British Lion, and twisted his tail, and goaded him--as you’d set a bulldog on a cat--to tear Popery to pieces. But, dear grandmother, don’t be afraid. Before you get my next letter, with all this noise and bouncing, we shall have settled down as quiet as stale sodawater. And then for the Church being in danger--bless you! the very folks who are now holding up their hands, thinking it will drop to pieces (from its very richness, I suppose, like some of your plum-puddings)--why, they’ll sleep quietly in their beds, and take their glass of wine and chicken with their usual appetite, until the Church shall be once more in trouble, once more to give ’em a pleasant, healthful shaking,--and then once more to let ’em easily down again. I’ve known some girls who’ve thought they best showed how tender they were by always going into fits: well, I do think that, just like ’em, some people believe they best show their religion when they scream and foam at the mouth about it.