[948] See chapters ix. and x., on the history of the protective spirit.
[949] Sir A. Alison notices in his History, (vol. iv. p. 213) ‘how widely the spirit of discontent was diffused’ in 1796; and the only wonder is, that the people were able to keep it in bounds. That, however, is a question which writers of his stamp never consider.
[950] Bishop Burgess, in a letter to Lord Melbourne, bitterly complained that Catholic emancipation was ‘the extinction of the purely Protestant character of the British legislature.’ Harford's Life of Burgess, p. 506: see also pp. 238, 239, 369, 370. There can be no doubt that the bishop rightly estimated the danger to his own party; and as to the Corporation and Test Acts, which, says another bishop (Tomline's Life of Pitt, vol. ii. p. 604), ‘were justly regarded as the firmest bulwarks of the British constitution,’ the feeling was so strong, that at an episcopal meeting in 1787, there were only two members who were willing to repeal these persecuting laws. See Bishop Watson's Life of Himself, vol. i. p. 262. Lord Eldon, who to the last stood up for the church, pronounced the bill for repealing these acts to be a ‘revolutionary bill.’ Twiss's Life of Eldon, vol. ii. p. 202.
[951] Sir C. Lewis, though in his learned work he over-estimates the resources possessed by politicians, does nevertheless allow that they are rarely able to anticipate the manner in which their measures will work. Lewis on the Methods of Observation and Reasoning in Politics, 1852, vol. ii. pp. 360–362. A writer of repute, M. Flassan, says (Hist. de la Diplomatie, vol. i. p. 19): ‘On doit être très-indulgent sur les erreurs de la politique, à cause de la facilité qu'il y a à en commettre, erreurs auxquelles la sagesse même quelquefois entraîne.’ The first part of this sentence is true enough; but it conveys a truth which ought to repress that love of interfering with the natural march of affairs which still characterizes politicians, even in the freest countries.
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