“British Museum, June 1st, 1854. “My dear Sir, I have read with the utmost attention the draft of Bill which accompanied your letter of yesterday. The subject is as important as it is difficult, and it is with the utmost diffidence that I venture to express an opinion on the practicability of your suggestions. I am afraid that any equitable proposal like yours would be resolutely resisted by the Church of England, not so much for what you propose doing now, but for the sake of the precedent you would establish. On the other hand, that section of the Catholics which is the most violent and noisy, and, therefore, I fear, the most influential in Ireland, would not be satisfied with the arrangement you propose, but would look upon it as the thin edge of the wedge, and an instalment only of what they think due to them. I am afraid that the question of the Temporalities of the Church of Ireland is of such a nature that no moderate man can hope to settle it to the satisfaction of both parties, so long as either possesses any thing. The only way of settling it would be to take every farthing of property from them all, and paying them all alike; but this is what can never be done without a revolution. There is a friend of mine to whom I should like to show your draft of Bill, and beg, therefore, to keep it two or three days for the purpose. In the present state of public affairs, even if the Government were disposed to entertain the principle of your Bill (and this is supposing a great deal), I am afraid the Ministers will not consent to its being introduced during this session. Of this, however, I am even a worse judge than of the rest. Believe me, &c., A. PANIZZI.” Lord John Russell’s opinion of the Bill was expressed no less decidedly, though a little more curtly than Panizzi’s:— “June 10th, 1854. “I think, as you do, that the Serjeant’s Bill would have no chance in Parliament. Yours, &c., &c., J. RUSSELL.”