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    time knew to be a calumny ? What could the bishop ' s bitterest enemy report more to his discredit ? But the pious ecclesiastic insinuates that the Calm Inquirer

    stigmatizes Bishop Horsley as ignorant upon every question , as a weak , pitiful , illiterate man . If the reverend writer really believes this to be the design of the Calm Inquirer , his intellect is to be pitied . If he knows that no such assertion

    or insinuation is contained in the work which he has honoured with his animadversions , whatever mav be thought of the bishop , it is evident that the prebendary , at least , steers perfectly clear of the imputation of being the ignorant propagator of calumny .

    The Calm Inquirer , in his review of the controversy , assigns as a reason why Dr . Priestley did not consult the book to which bishop Horsley referred , that Mosheim ' s Ante-Constantine History was a book u not very

    comraonly to be met with in England : '• and likewise that the bishop who had borrowed from Mosheim without sufficiently acknowledging the obligation , " might presume upon security from detection by the scarcity of the book /'

    Here Mr . Prebendary triumphs . He thinks he holds the reviewer fast : and he it > determined to give him . ijo . quarter * He recurs to the subject again and again in order to blazon the reviewer ' s ignorance and Jiis own superior knowledge .

    Mr . B . says he , p . 571 , represents a very common book as not easily to be met with in England . " And again , p . 5 fS , " the bishop must be very ignorant indeed , if he presumed on the scarcity of Mo&beim ' s Book , ' * And what proof does the venerable preben-

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    dary bring of his broad assertion P Why , truly , that the Ante-Constantine History was found in the Libraries of no less than two clergymen in Scotland . It shou-ld seero

    that in the estimation of this worthy divine of the English church no book but what is very common indeed can possibly find its way into the library of a clergyman of the Scottish establishment .

    The prebendary ' s clerical friends in the vicinity of Dundee will no doubt duly appreciate the politeness of the " stranger that is with - their gates . *' In the mean time allowing that this book was so common in

    Scotland , in the year 1812 , that it might be picked up from a stall at Edinburgh or Dundee , and might even be found in a Presbyterian minister ' s library , it is not easy for those who are not so profoundly skilled as the reverend prebendary ie in Aristotelian and

    Baconian logic , " nor yet gifted with second-sight ^ JLo discover , how this proves that the same book must have been very common in England in the year 1787 . The premises and the conclusion are at some distance from each other . And that the book is not at present very common in London is evident from the testimony of Mr . Vidal , who is now favouring the public with a translation of Mosheim ' s Ante-Constantine

    History ; and who in his preface assigns this among other reasons for his undertaking , viz . 4 C that the book had become exceedingly

    scarce , insomuch , that although it was not unfrequently sought after with the most eager $$ s > dujty , a copy was rarely to be procured

    even for any price . " H ' 6 w profoundly ignorant then

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    Mr . Belsham ' s Reply to the Rev . H . Horsley . 387

• Citation
  • Monthly Repository (1806-1838) and Unitarian Chronicle (1832-1833), June 2, 1813, page 387, in the Nineteenth-Century Serials Edition (2008; 2018) ncse.ac.uk/periodicals/mruc/issues/vm2-ncseproduct2429/page/31/