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    which we expect from the redress of grievances , will be lost , if , being extorted from the unwillingness of the Legislature , they leave behind then the feelings not of reconciliation but of victory and defeat . What a commentary have the last few weeks afforded on the principles of the King ' s Speech ! If Ministers had announced of themselves , the intention of doing for the Dissenters all which in this short period they have been

    obliged successively to promise , they would have retained the large measure which they formerly possessed of the confidence of that immense body , and we should not have heard , perhaps for a long time to come , of a single petition for the separation of Church and State . The Movement has gained several years upon them in a few weeks ; while in the same time they have let half their power of guiding its course slip out of their hands , by teaching their surest friends to hope for nothing from them but through the means which would be taken with enemies .

    Ministers made but humble pretensions at the opening of the session , and humble has been their conduct . They gave fair warning ; they let all men know that it was no business of theirs to stir a step in improvement unless somebody drove them , and that whoever came with a petition in one hand , must come with a cudgel in the other . But it was absurd to imagine that those who had carried Catholic Emancipation , and the repeal of the Test and Corporation Acts , could have any objection to concede the little which is still withheld of religious liberty ; and the Dissenters feeling this , did

    not use the cudgel , but quietly stated what they thought themselves entitled to demand , deeming that as they were speaking to friends , nothing further was requisite . They waited , and nothing came but the ridiculous Marriage Bill : and they received every intimation short of an express declaration , that this was all they had to expect . Not because what they claimed was considered unfit to be granted ; but merely because it could be refused . Thus warned , the Dissenters resorted to the cudgel : and now mark with what

    result . At each application of the weapon , Ministers rose in their offers . First they vaguely told the Dissenters not to conclude that nothing more was to be done for them . Then they would * call the attention * of the House to the subject of Church Rates , and propose , as was at first given out , a diminution , which afterwards rose into a commutation , and was at last announced , though not officially , as an entire abolition . Next , the Marriage Bill was virtually given up , and several Ministers expressed their private opinion that marriage should be a civil contract . Next came a proposition for a general

    registry of births , marriages , and deaths ; but at first , only from a brother of the Lord Chancellor ; afterwards Lord Althorp hoped that such a registry , by being combined with another measure , might be introduced as a Government question ; and possibly some relief might be afforded to the Dissenters on the subject of burials also . Lastly , a petition from Cambridge for the admission of Dissenters to graduate in that University , was presented by

    the Premier in the Lords , and by the Secretary to the Treasury in the House of Commons , and warmly supported both by them and b ^ other leading members of the Administration . On this occasion ( because it is a small one ) they at length spoke as statesmen should speak : the tone was not that of reluctant concession , but of earnest advocacy : as if they were not only willing to do justice , but were glad of the opportunity .

    How much more highly would they now have stood in reputation and in real power , had they adopted this tone throughout , and from the commencement ! How much might they yet retrieve , were they even now to adopt it ! To CoRRKiPONDBNTi . —On the ' Application of the terms Poetry , &c . ; ' and on ' Death Punishment / in our next ; when we hope to bring up the arrears of our Critical Notices . Kathleen ' s other song ii ( with htr permission ) gone into the ' Mouths , '

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    312 Notes on the Netapapers .

• Citation
  • Monthly Repository (1806-1838) and Unitarian Chronicle (1832-1833), April 2, 1834, page 312, in the Nineteenth-Century Serials Edition (2008; 2018) ncse.ac.uk/periodicals/mruc/issues/vm2-ncseproduct2632/page/84/