at Maidstone, the truth-obtruding journeymanwatchmaker was dealt with by the Whig Member, between whom and the Tory Member the representation of the County of Kent is so commodiously divided.*

Of this fiction, as of all such lawyer-begotten frauds, confusion is among the inevitable, as well as relatively useful and desirable, and desired conse, quences. Instead of the proper appellation, viz. Governing or Managing body, the appellation General Committee being employed-employed in the first instance-and thereafter, dropping the word General, the word Committee alone,-one consequence is that to what is really a Committee, the term Sub-Committee is thereafter attached. In those places in which this word Sub-Committee is employed, improper as the appellation is, no confusion however is produced by it. But, as often as for the designation

* Kentish Chronicle, 18th June, 1816, in Cobbett's Register, 29th June, 1816, p. 808. "Here one of the populace had the effrontery to remark, that only two hands were held up, except by the High-Sheriff and his friends. Sir William Geary "then challenged this man as to his condition in life, when he "turned out to be a journeyman watchmaker, who was only a "lodger in the town." The proposed addresses in question (it is insisted, p. 818.) "purported to be the addresses of the Nobility, &c. .... and Inhabitants:" . . . . The watchmaker, "it " is added.... had lived at Maidstone not above two years, and "was only a lodger."

of the governing body the word Committee is employed, on every such occasion,-on pain of misconceiving the matter, and taking the body so styled for the body there styled a Sub-Committee,what you have to do is to remember that this which is called a Committee, viz. of the Governing body is not a Committee of the governing body, but the governing body itself.

But, without some special motive-and that a pretty strong one-a man does not choose to keep his attention and memory thus upon the rack for hours together. Nor would even all this pains suffice: for, to thicken the confusion, to this sort of body called a Sub-Committee, is also applied the appellation Committee:* and thus it is that, through

"

*Thus, in Report I. p. 23. the same body which is styled "the Sub-Committee for Building" is presently afterwards styled "the Building Committee." So likewise in Report II. p. 5. we have "the School-Committee," and that before any mention is made of Sub-Committees: and immediately after the word " SubCommittees," instead of the Sub-Committee for Building we have "the Committee for Building." So again in the next page (p. 6.) we have their Committee” (i. e. the Committee's Committee) " of Correspondence :" and moreover in the same page “ a finance " Committee:"-in p. 14. " School Committee" twice; in p. 16, twice; in p. 17, once: and in pages 15 and 16, a " Committee " of Ladies:"-in all which instances, after due consideration, it will appear that what is meant by Committee is Sub-Committee. And thus it is, that throughout,-as far as depends upon the Reverend and most Reverend penmen,-the two ideas, for the distin

out the whole of this business, the personality of the real agents in it is kept involved in a perpetual cloud: which is the very thing that was to be done.

guishing of which the terms Committee and Sub-Committee are in one place held up to view in form and ceremony, are, by what is done in so many other places, so effectually confounded.

PART V.

BAPTISM AND SPONSORSHIP PROPER, WHEN INSTITUTED-BAPTISM USELESS, SPONSORSHIP IMPROPER, NOW.

OF this tract the main object is-to promote the passing a correct judgment on the nature and tendency of the formulary, which forms the subject of it. To this purpose it will not be necessary to enter into any part of the history of that same formulary, other than what is legible upon the face of it, together with a few such other particulars of Church history as are matter of universal and undisputed notoriety.

When, upon the accession of Elizabeth, and the re-substitution of the Protestant system to the Catholic, a set of formularies to be employed on religious occasions was framed,—the interest of public peace concurred with this one particular interest, in recommending to the ruling few, the preserving, with as little change as might be, every institution which was not, on some particular account, in a particular way and high degree obnoxious: and

the prepossession,-which, in the breasts of the uninformed and unscrutinizing multitude, habit had formed in favour of every thing, in which they had been accustomed to behold an object of respect,-was sufficient to present change, in so far as it went, in the character of a hazardous operation,-adherence to established usage as the course most favourable to general content and peace-in a word as the only safe one.

In the Romish ritual, mixt up with those notions, which, having been suggested by the temporal interests and interest-begotten prejudices of successive rulers, were of course subservient to those interests, others may be observed, which,-having been instituted in a state of things altogether different from that in which the religion of Jesus, and with it the authority of the, successors of St. Peter, found itself seated on the throne,-had, though no longer suited to the times, been preserved from change, only because no special and urgent interest had been felt calling for a change.

Among these, the formulary here in question, viz. the Catechism,-together with the supposed more important formulary of Baptism by which it was preceded, and the confessedly less important formulary of Confirmation by which it was followed, formed so many links of a connected chain.

In the difference between the primæval and the subsequent states of Christian society, may be