who have foisted their ‘idiot and embryo’ inventions upon us for truth, and who have fomented all the bad passions of the heart, and let loose all the mischiefs of war, of fire, and famine, to avenge the slightest difference of opinion on any one iota of their lying creeds, or the slightest disrespect to any one of those mummeries and idle pageants which they had set up as sacred idols for the world to wonder at. We do not forget, in making these remarks, that there was a time when the persons who will be most annoyed and scandalized at them, would have taken a more effectual mode of shewing their zeal and indignation; when to have expressed a free opinion on a Monk’s cowl or a Cardinal’s hat, would have exposed the writer who had been guilty of such sacrilege, to the pains and penalties of excommunication; to be burnt at an _auto da fe_; to be consigned to the dungeons of the Inquisition, or doomed to the mines of Spanish America; to have his nose slit, or his ears cut off, or his hand reduced to a stump. Such were the considerate and humane proceedings by which the Priests of former times vindicated their own honour, which they pretended to be the honour of God. Such was their humility, when they had the power. Will they complain now, if we only criticise the colour of a coat, or smile at the circumference of a Doctor of Divinity’s wig, since we can do it with impunity? We cry them mercy! ON THE CLERICAL CHARACTER ——‘Now mark a spot or two, Which so much virtue would do well to clear.’—COWPER (CONTINUED.) _Jan. 31, 1818._ Many people seem to think, that the restraints imposed on the Clergy by the nature of their profession, take away from them, by degrees, all temptations to violate the limits of duty, and that the character grows to the cloth. We are afraid that this is not altogether the case.